Nigeria Reaches Settlement On Dick Cheney Bribery Case

Nigeria's anti-corruption police has dropped charges against the former US vice-president, Dick Cheney, over a multimillion-dollar bribery case after the energy firm Halliburton agreed to pay up to 250 million in fines. The charges which were filed Dec. 7 center around Cheney's activities as the chief executive of Halliburton and its one-time subsidiary KBR before he became the vice president in 2001. Last year both companies pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices act by paying more than $180 million in bribes to Nigerian officials prior to 2007. The companies were fined $579 million, the largest fine ever paid under the act.