The RHVE Consortium that undertook the audit of the US$7.3 billion claims by ExxonMobil’s subsidiary for the period 2017 to 2020 said that the company assigns costs using a complex system and while only a small figure, some expenses were above what they should be and included a transfer pricing percentage.
“EEPGL’s accounting is extremely tedious, requiring intensive concentration and diligence to understand… EEPGL has more than 180 Cost Objects that costs are booked into, with many of those costs then flowing into a second Cost Objects and then further broken down into other tiers. There are several instances where a cost booked into a Cost Object must be traced through five levels of allocations to see the eventual charge or allocation,” the report seen by the Stabroek News states.