“The company has not yet been officially notified of any legal suit on this matter to this date,” Taqa said in a statement to the Abu Dhabi bourse, where its shares are listed.
However, the investment firm, with portfolio spanning across the international energy sector, vowed to “respond at the right time through legal channels”.
Peter Barker-Homek, a 48-year-old former US Marine, has sued Taqa in the US District Court of Eastern Michigan, alleging he was forced out last year for trying to stop “kickbacks, bribery, accounting fraud and corruption” at the energy company.
The former CEO, who is seeking at least $460 million in damages, alleged in the lawsuit that he was summoned by Taqa General Manager Carl Sheldon to a meeting in 2009 and presented with a “severance agreement” to step down.
Barker-Homek, who now lives in California and has worked for energy companies such as BP in the past, said he signed the agreement because he feared arrest and imprisonment, and forfeited “millions of dollars owed to him”. “Worried for his life and the well-being of his family, Barker-Homek signed the severance agreement, thereafter he was harassed and lived in fear of a ‘knock’ on the door by the police, received mysterious phone calls and was followed, until finally he and his family escaped to the safety of the United States,” said the breach-of-contract lawsuit filed on Aug. 27.
Taqa, 75 percent-owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, denied the former CEO’s claims in the lawsuit. “The company takes any challenge to its reputation extremely seriously and will vigorously defend itself and the individuals named against the spurious allegations made in the filing,” a spokesman said.
Barker-Homek’s departure in October came after the company, one of the vehicles the emirate uses to invest oil money, made about a dozen acquisitions in three years. Last month, Taqa acquired a 24 percent stake in the Bergermeer Gas Storage project in the Netherlands from energy firms Dyas and Petro-Canada Netherlands. The purchase raised Taqa’s share in the gas storage facility to 60 percent.
Before being fired, Barker-Homek said he took actions that angered Taqa board members, including dismissing a car-leasing company that Taqa was using because he thought it was too expensive — but unbeknownst to him at the time — was paying kickbacks to at least one board member.
Barker-Homek also accused Taqa of being involved in an “Enron-like accounting scheme” to hide liabilities on its books that belonged to its parent company.
He said one reason the company’s executives resented him is because he said that 2009 bonuses “would not be guaranteed” due to the tough economic climate. “Being held accountable threatened and angered them,” he said.
The firm’s revenues grew to $4.5 billion from $100 million during his tenure and that the company showed its appreciation by increasing his salary to $800,000 in 2008 from $360,000 when he started in 2006, according to Barker-Homek.
Taqa stocks have traded in a range of between Dh1 and Dh1.30 since November last year, when the company said it would change strategy and focus on organic growth rather than more expensive acquisitions.