Eurest Support Services (ESS) is a subsidiary of the
catering
Catering is the business of providing food services at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, hospital, pub, aircraft, cruise ship, park, festival, filming location or film studio.
History of catering
The earliest account of major service ...
company
Compass Group
Compass Group plc is a British multinational contract foodservice company headquartered in Chertsey, England. It is the largest contract foodservice company in Europe, ahead of Sodexo, employing over 500,000 people. It serves meals in location ...
PLC specializing in harsh-environment large-scale food service and facilities management. Its primary clients are military forces and other security services, major defense contractors, and construction, mining, and
oil exploration and production facilities worldwide.
ESS first came to wide public light in 2005 after being embroiled in the multibillion-dollar United Nations procurement scandal. It was reported that ESS used a broker company in New York City to get
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
procurement contracts in
West Africa
West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
with the help of a corrupt U.N. official,
Alexander Yakovlev
Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev (; 2 December 1923 – 18 October 2005) was a Soviet and Russian politician, diplomat, and historian. A member of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union throughout the 1980s ...
.
Separately, it was also the subject of a public hearing in 2007 by the
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the main investigative United States congressional committee, committee of the United States House of Representatives. The committee's broad jurisdiction and legislative authority make it one o ...
for its role in security contract arrangements for its staff and equipment while providing dining services to the US Army in Iraq as a subcontractor to
Halliburton
Halliburton Company is an American multinational corporation and the world's second-largest oil service company which is responsible for most of the world's fracking operations. It employs approximately 55,000 people through its hundreds of su ...
subsidiary
Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR).
U.N. corruption
News reports in 2005 described a multimillion-dollar contract to provide food to U.N. peacekeepers in West Africa awarded to ESS days after
Andy Seiwert, a senior executive at ESS, allegedly received confidential bid information. At the time U.N. officials estimated the total value of ESS food contracts with the United Nations in West Africa at $237 million, with renewals and add-ons that could reach $351 million.
Attached to the e-mail were commercially sensitive U.N. documents that no one outside of highly restricted circles within the U.N. was supposed to have access to; and that the contracts committee itself would not ponder for five more days.
* The first document was a draft of the official recommendation by the UN procurement department that a $62 million contract for U.N. peacekeepers in Liberia be awarded to Eurest Support Services.
* The second document was a detailed United Nations evaluation of the technical abilities of 12 different food supply firms to meet U.N. requirements for feeding separate UN peacekeeping missions.
* The third document was a detailed list of the price bids, that three of the five firms had submitted for the UN contract. The document showed that ESS had bested its nearest rival, a food services firm known as
ES-KO, by literally pennies per ration unit, and had also underbid its competitors in virtually every other service category.
Such information is considered top-secret by the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
, and is submitted in a sealed-bid process that U.N. officials have touted as foolproof.
ESS's business development executive
Andy Seiwert had a vital interest in it. Siewert was the ESS/Compass executive described by sources close to the U.N. as having the most frequent day-to-day contact with the scandal-plagued UN procurement department. That contact included frequent meetings with
Alexander Yakovlev
Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev (; 2 December 1923 – 18 October 2005) was a Soviet and Russian politician, diplomat, and historian. A member of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union throughout the 1980s ...
.
Alexander Yakovlev
Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev (; 2 December 1923 – 18 October 2005) was a Soviet and Russian politician, diplomat, and historian. A member of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union throughout the 1980s ...
pleaded guilty to charges of corruption, wire fraud and money-laundering.
Vladimir Kuznetsov Head of the U.N. Committee for Administrative and Budgetary Issues was also arrested and indicted after taking nearly $1 million in bribes from the
Compass Group
Compass Group plc is a British multinational contract foodservice company headquartered in Chertsey, England. It is the largest contract foodservice company in Europe, ahead of Sodexo, employing over 500,000 people. It serves meals in location ...
.
Competitors
ES-KO and
Supreme Food Services AG initiated lawsuits claiming violation of the
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the
Sherman Antitrust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (, ) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce and consequently prohibits unfair monopolies. It was passed by Congress and is named for S ...
and New York State's
Donnelly Act regulating free trade. Compass settled the claims and said that the total legal, professional and related costs associated with investigation, litigation and settlement was below £40 million although they did not admit legal liability. Federal investigations were announced to be underway and the case was referred to the
UK Serious Fraud Office.
Iraq and Kuwait contracting
As preparations for the invasion of Iraq were being made in early 2003, and continuing through 2006, ESS was contracted by the U.S. Marine Corps, the 82nd Airborne Division, the British Ministry of Defence, the
Coalition Provisional Authority
The Coalition Provisional Authority (; , CPA) was a Provisional government, transitional government of Iraq established following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, invasion of the country on 19 March 2003 by Multi-National Force – Iraq, U.S.-led Co ...
, and major defense contractors Fluor, RMS, Bechtel, and most notably
KBR, a subsidiary of
Halliburton
Halliburton Company is an American multinational corporation and the world's second-largest oil service company which is responsible for most of the world's fracking operations. It employs approximately 55,000 people through its hundreds of su ...
under the
U.S. Army troop support contract called LOGCAP III to provide dining and construction services at desert bases and encampments in Kuwait and Iraq. ESS, through its office in Kuwait, bid for, was awarded, and built and operated ten dining facilities in Kuwait and later thirteen facilities throughout Iraq, and routinely served meals to 50,000 U.S. and other Coalition service members each day. Over 100 Western managers and 1,500 Indian workers staffed the dining facilities, some open 24 hours per day, and lived in harsh conditions inside the camps for months at a time.
2004 Fallujah ambush
On March 31, 2004, four Blackwater security contractors were killed in an
ambush in Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad, while protecting an ESS convoy en route to a Fluor construction site elsewhere. It has been widely but erroneously reported that the convoy attacked had been destined for a KBR location. That prompted a further contention that the contract between ESS and Blackwater for Iraq road transport and personnel close protection security, through a joint venture business formed by Blackwater and Regency Hotels of Kuwait, was known to Halliburton and therefore violated Halliburton's contract with the U.S. Army.
External links
Compass Group PLC - Official siteESS USA websitees-ko.com
Sources
Lawsuit from competitor ES-KO
Lawsuit from competitor Supreme Foodservices AG
The stolen secret documents
References
{{reflist
Business services companies established in 1941
Catering and food service companies of the United Kingdom
Companies based in Surrey
Companies based in Charlotte, North Carolina
Compass Group
Corporate scandals
Corporate crime
History of the United Nations
Military food of the United Kingdom
Multinational companies
Private military contractors