http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=12&art_id=10441&sid=6326812&con_type=3

Mystery firm linked to US lobbyist scandal

US government investigators probing Washington's explosive
Congressional bribery scandal centered on disgraced lobbyist Jack
Abramoff recently visited Hong Kong, according to a witness
interviewed by the authorities.

By ZachColeman

Saturday, January 21, 2006


US government investigators probing Washington's explosive
Congressional bribery scandal centered on disgraced lobbyist Jack
Abramoff recently visited Hong Kong, according to a witness
interviewed by the authorities.

The investigators reportedly are chasing convoluted money trails
leading to Abramoff and government officials he sought to influence.

Among the likely subjects of interest here is a previously unknown
company called Rose Garden Holdings.

In May 2002, Abramoff notified the US Senate that Rose Garden had
hired him and Greenberg Traurig, his firm at the time, to represent
Rose Garden's "interests before federal agencies and [the] US
Congress."

Abramoff recorded Rose Garden's address as a luxury flat in Tai Hang,
above Causeway Bay, and its business as international trade.

Over the next year and a half, the records show, Rose Garden paid
Greenberg Traurig US$1.4 million for putting its case to the Senate,
House of Representatives and US Department of Labor.

Hong Kong's Companies Registry has no record of Rose Garden Holdings;
nor does the telephone directory.

The apartment listed by Abramoff as Rose Garden's premises has been
owned since 1992 by Luen Thai Shipping and Trading, according to the
Land Registry.

Luen Thai Holdings and its controlling shareholders, the Tan family,
were leading beneficiaries of Abramoff's Washington lobbying.
[...]

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=12&art_id=10441&sid=6326812&con_type=3

Mystery firm linked to US lobbyist scandal

US government investigators probing Washington's explosive
Congressional bribery scandal centered on disgraced lobbyist Jack
Abramoff recently visited Hong Kong, according to a witness
interviewed by the authorities.

By ZachColeman

Saturday, January 21, 2006



US government investigators probing Washington's explosive
Congressional bribery scandal centered on disgraced lobbyist Jack
Abramoff recently visited Hong Kong, according to a witness
interviewed by the authorities.

The investigators reportedly are chasing convoluted money trails
leading to Abramoff and government officials he sought to influence.

Among the likely subjects of interest here is a previously unknown
company called Rose Garden Holdings.

In May 2002, Abramoff notified the US Senate that Rose Garden had
hired him and Greenberg Traurig, his firm at the time, to represent
Rose Garden's "interests before federal agencies and [the] US
Congress."

Abramoff recorded Rose Garden's address as a luxury flat in Tai Hang,
above Causeway Bay, and its business as international trade.

Over the next year and a half, the records show, Rose Garden paid
Greenberg Traurig US$1.4 million for putting its case to the Senate,
House of Representatives and US Department of Labor.

Hong Kong's Companies Registry has no record of Rose Garden Holdings;
nor does the telephone directory.

The apartment listed by Abramoff as Rose Garden's premises has been
owned since 1992 by Luen Thai Shipping and Trading, according to the
Land Registry.

Luen Thai Holdings and its controlling shareholders, the Tan family,
were leading beneficiaries of Abramoff's Washington lobbying.

Luen Thai officials and spokesmen referred queries about Abramoff and
Rose Garden to chief executive Henry Tan, but Tan declined through his
secretary to be interviewed, citing his travel schedule.

Luen Thai Holdings, which held a HK$669.4 million initial public stock
offering in 2004, was built on the business of sewing together
clothing for top US brand-names such as Liz Claiborne, with the
assistance of young women from China and other Asian countries on the
US-controlled Pacific island of Saipan.

The foundations of the company's profitable niche are loopholes in US
law that allow free migration to the island, set its minimum wage
below mainland US levels and allow clothing sewn there to carry the
"Made in USA" label and be exempt from quotas and tariffs.

Before the Tan family had friends in Washington, they made enemies.

In 1991, the US Labor Department sued six Tan companies for paying
1,350 mainly Chinese workers less than Saipan's minimum wage and
forcing them to work up to 90 hours a week without required overtime
pay.

The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration levied more than
US$240,000 in fines against the six Tan companies the following year
for violations including locking and blocking factory and dormitory
fire doors and other unsanitary and hazardous conditions in the
factories and dorms.

After the charges were made public, clothing giant Levi Strauss & Co
and retailer The Gap halted purchases from the Tans.

US Representative George Miller, a Democrat from California, launched
committee hearings into labor abuses on the island and ways to close
the loopholes surrounding Saipan.

The Tans settled the overtime suit without admitting any wrongdoing by
agreeing to pay the workers US$9 million.

They also settled the health and safety charges by pledging US$1.3
million in repairs and paying a US$76,000 penalty.

After this episode - and ones with other island manufacturers -
Saipan's government hired Abramoff to fend off repeated threats to the
island's status in Washington.

Abramoff took up the garment makers' cause enthusiastically, taking
congressmen and their staff and families to Saipan to enjoy its
tropical pleasures and hear the manufacturers' case for protection.

Abramoff and his staff trumpeted the clothiers' agenda to
administration officials, targeting unsympathetic ones for
retribution.

A syndicated US newspaper columnist last month admitted receiving
payments from Abramoff for writing favorable stories about Saipan and
other clients.

Between 1995 and 2002, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands, centered on Saipan, paid Abramoff at least US$8 million,
according to commonwealth audits and Senate records.

But the high-priced help became a lightning rod for controversy on the
cash-strapped islands.

Twice the government dropped Abramoff's services.

Rose Garden's hiring of Abramoff came four months after the
government, now under a new governor, ended his contract for the last
time.

During the previous suspension, four business organizations in Saipan
joined to publicly form a new group that paid Abramoff US$2.4 million.

If Abramoff reported "Rose Garden Holdings" as his client, using its
name as a front for Luen Thai or other Saipan business interests, he
may have violated the US Lobbying Disclosure Act.

Jan Witold Baran, a Washington lawyer specializing in lobbying law,
said the law requires identification of the entity directing and
funding lobbying activity.

Juan Babauta, who was succeeded on January 8 as Northern Marianas
governor by a former Tan Holdings executive, told the Saipan Tribune
just before he left office:

"The Jack Abramoff investigation is obviously turning in the direction
of the CNMI."

According to an investigation published by The Washington Post three
weeks ago, records obtained by the newspaper reveal that Saipan
garment makers, including Tan, contributed US$500,000 to an
organization called the US Family Network between 1996 and 2001.

Much of the organization's funding was spent supporting other groups
linked to Abramoff or indicted Congressman Tom DeLay.

A series of e-mail messages between Abramoff and Willie Tan, Henry's
brother who heads up the family's ventures on site in Saipan, recently
obtained by Washington journalist Joshua Micah Marshall, appear to
show another financial link.

According to a copy posted on Marshall's Web site, Abramoff billed Tan
US$223,679 in 2000 toward the annual rental of skyboxes in three
Washington-area stadiums and arenas.

Abramoff made frequent use of the skyboxes to entertain congressmen.

The e-mails indicate receipt of a first quarterly payment of
US$55,919.75 and show Tan directing a company finance executive to
make the second quarterly payment.

________________________________________________________________

Harry
















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