OPEC sued for 'economic terrorism'

An activist lawyer who has taken on leaders such as Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, Bill Clinton and Hugo Chavez has traveled to Austria to
serve, personally, officials at OPEC with a lawsuit charging the cartel
with “economic terrorism.”

Larry Klayman, founder of Freedom Watch USA, told WND that he recently traveled in Vienna to deliver the legal notification.

His claim of conspiracy against American consumers by OPEC is
contained in the lawsuit he filed just days ago in federal court in
Washington.

Freedom Watch USA, a public interest organization, charges that the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries engages in illegal price
fixing and market division by artificially inflating crude prices.

Klayman said the member nations “specifically and intentionally limit
barrels of oil that each country produces,” causing the price to rise.

“This amounts to illegal price fixing,” he said, as well as antitrust law violations.

“These artificially inflated crude oil prices fall hard on the backs
of Americans, many of whom cannot afford to buy gasoline during these
severely depressed economic times,” said Klayman, a former Justice
Department lawyer.

As a government attorney in the Antitrust Division, Klayman
participated in breaking up AT&T.; Now he and Freedom Watch have
launched a campaign against the 12 nations that work together on oil
prices and production.

Klayman alleges leaders of both major U.S. political parties “line
their pockets from big oil interests and are just sitting back and not
doing anything.”

He also noted the federal government is not allowing the U.S. to
increase its own oil production, and Barack Obama’s policies have
discouraged oil discovery and drilling.

“This has led to more speculation on oil prices, causing them to
rise. And the president’s policies regarding Iran also have contributed
to the spike,” he said.

The complaint argues that without OPEC’s anti-competitive agreement, more oil would be in production, and the result would be lower prices.

“Even when OPEC members produce to the full extent of their capacity,
they produce far less oil than they would were they operating in a
competitive market, because they artificially restrict their production
capacity as part of their price-fixing scheme,” the complaint alleges.