CSX World Terminals Last Updated: October 14, 2008
This subsidiary of the transportation giant CSX played a bit part in the Dubai Ports Controversy in 2006. CSX World Terminals owns and runs shipping
terminals at ports all over the world – in 2005, CSX sold it to a firm owned by the United Arab
Emirates, Dubai Ports World, for $1
billion. A year later, Dubai Ports World would need the help of CSX’s former chairman, John Snow. Snow resigned from CSX in 2003 to become Treasury Secretary, but retained a stake in his former firm’s interests by taking with him 250,000 shares of company stock and a pension worth $2 million a year with him.
Dubai Ports World wanted to buy a cargo shipping company that controlled operations at six U.S. ports, but it needed approval from a special U.S. committee to do so. That body, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, evaluates international sales and take-overs for their impact on national security. As Treasury Secretary, Snow chaired CFIUS.
CFIUS approved the sale after a short investigation, and in spite of several factors that should have raised alarms. The United Arab Emirates, which owns Dubai Ports, dragged its feet when the United States asked for help tracking Osama bin Laden’s bank accounts in the aftermath of September 11th. Some UAE banks had laundered Al Qaeda money used by the September 11th hijackers. And a renegade Pakistani scientist who sold off nuclear components to North Korea and Iran routed his contraband through the UAE.
Dubai Ports ultimately won approval to buy the shipping company, but only on the condition that it sell off any interests in U.S. ports. In 2007, it sold those divisions to AIG Global Investment Group for an undisclosed price.
Dubai Ports still owned CSX World Terminals, which operates container terminals at ports all over the world, including one of Hong Kong’s largest.
Categories
Homeland Security | International Finance
Sources
- CSX World Terminals acquires majority of Asia Container Terminals, Jacksonville Business Journal, January 3, 2005: www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2005/01/03/daily1.html< /li>
- Dubai Ports International Buys CSX World Terminals, Jacksonville Business Journal, February 23, 2005: www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2005/02/21/daily19.html?jst =s_cn_hl
- Strife Deepens Over Port Security, Christian Science Monitor, February 22, 2006: www.csmonitor.com/2006/0222/p01s01-usfp.html
- Congressional Letter to John Snow re: Dubai Ports, February 16, 2006: www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Dubai_Ports_letter.pdf
- Executive Pensions Eclipse Years on the Job, New York Times, December 17, 2002: query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E5D9143DF934A25751C1A964 9C8B63