[Torie]

Well then this brouhaha should have a short half life if you are right, maybe not with the usual suspects, but with those with adjudicatory authority. You are positing that absolutely nothing is there; Halliburton simply decided to add up and book its change orders signed off by the client for work previously performed prior to collecting the cash. That would be a real snoozer. I suspect maybe some of those change orders might not have been signed off on, but Halliburton thought were meritorious. That is just a wild guess.

[Texasforever]

There are change orders that are challenged yes. It is usually because the client interprets the increase as engineering error and Halliburton interprets it as client error. That was not a frequent happening and usually absorbed by Halliburton to avoid alienating important clients. I am not saying that Halliburton may have some dirty hands. However I don’t believe the dirty hands is in accounting practices. The large scandals in EPC have always been with procurement and procurement mangers’ inside deals with vendors. Those when found are dealt with harshly by the company OR the client that is buying the equipment through the company.

[Texasforever]

One more point and maybe the most important. Each project is executed by a task force that is completely self-contained. Each Task force has a full compliment of client personnel that have access to every facet of the project being built. They do their own audits, engineering, procurement, construction and ESPECIALLY cost control. They never have their eyes off the budget.