
A livid Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo today made it clear that he still believes a conflict of interest exist in the relationship between the Exxon Mobil company and the Hughes, Fields and Stoby Law Firm, which has AFC Leader and Prominent Attorney, Nigel Hughes as a managing partner.
Nigel Hughes was recently elected as Leader of the Alliance for Change party, but previously served as a Chairman of the party.
In response to the Vice President’s conflict of interest claims, the President of Exxon Mobil Guyana, Alistair Routledge, told reporters that his company follows the laws and regulations of Guyana and that he did not see any conflict of interest in the company’s relations with its legal representative in Guyana, the Hughes, Fields and Stoby Law Firm.
At his press conference today, the Vice President fired back at the Exxon boss, stating that he did not expect anything better from Routledge.
So, it is like you have a conflict between two parties and the two parties saying, oh we are not conflicting. What else do you expect them to say? So, it is like they want to judge their own conflict whether there is a conflict of interest here and they can’t do that, Exxon is a conflicted party too because they have on their payroll in the country of Guyana the Leader of a political party that is represented in the National Assembly and has a number of seats in the National Assembly,” Jagdeo stated.
According to Mr. Jagdeo, there is no public document to confirm the payment stream from Exxon to the Law Firm, and therefore, he believes it could easily become a situation where Exxon may not only be paying for legal work, but could also be making political contributions.
“How is this not a conflict of interest?” Jagdeo questioned… “Maybe Exxon has worked this way in other countries in the world, they like to say oh we haven’t done that in other countries,” he continued.

Mr. Jagdeo has threatened that the Government will be taking the oil company to task ‘at the right place and time’ and assured that the matter will not be placed on the back burner.
“We believe that it is a serious case of conflict of interest, it is paying for influence in policies and even now, the obscenity of this all, but oh if I became President then I will exit this relationship. So he has now to deflect attention from all of this, “Jagdeo stated.
There has been an avalanche of attacks against Nigel Hughes since becoming leader of the AFC with the Government and many of its officials and letter writers, accusing Hughes of being unfit to stand for political office because of his law firm’s relations with Exxon Mobil.
For his part, Nigel Hughes has reminded that his law firm has always represented oil companies. He said in relation to the Exxon Mobil company, he has never made representation for the company or been involved in the management of its portfolio. He said the the company’s portfolio at the law firm is handled exclusively by a senior partner.
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