The U.S. Justice Department is conducting a criminal inquiry of nearly a dozen oil and oil services companies, focusing on potentially illegal payments to customs agents who provided freight forwarding and other services that extended to Nigeria. The SEC is investigating as well.

According to Dow Jones, eleven oil and oil service firms received a letter on July 2 from the Justice Department’s criminal fraud section asking them to detail their relationship with Panalpina World Transport Holding Ltd. (PWTN), a Swiss-based shipping and logistics-management company.

Commentary: This should not be entirely surprising to Ethisphere readers – back on June 7th, we reported how Noble Corporation was opening an investigation into the dealings with a customs brokerage in Nigeria (obviously Panalpina). Noble’s announcement was simply coming on the heels of announcements of investigations from Tidewater (which we wrote about back on May 1st) as well as Global Industries Ltd.