Buzzfeed has published a massive opposition research document on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney that was allegedly compiled by his rival in the 2008 presidential primary, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).
Among other claims, the document contends–citing Forbes–that “Bain & Company was hired by Iran’s national oil company in 2004 to conduct [an] efficiency study”:
In 2004, Bain & Co.’s Italian Branch Was Hired By National Iranian Oil Company To Conduct Study On”How To Make The Bureaucratic State Company More Efficient.” “[A]s oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh,an ally of powerful former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in the late 1990s pushed through billions ofdollars in agreements with Shell, France’s Total, Italy’s Eni, Schlumberger and Halliburton to develop large andtechnically challenging projects, such as Iran’s huge South Pars field, which is believed to hold 7% of the world’snatural gas supply. … [National Iranian Oil Company] once tried to put on more of a Western face. Zangenehplanned to streamline it along the lines of, say, Shell, and even hired Bain & Co. Italy to conduct a $2.3 millionstudy on how to make the bureaucratic state company more efficient. Bain & Co., headquartered in Boston, saysits independent Italian unit did the work and no U.S. sanctions were violated.” (Daniel Fisher, “Running Dry,” Forbes)
Romney was CEO of Bain Capital–a separate entity–until 1999; he did serve as interim CEO of Bain & Company, and still allegedly benefits from investments in Bain & Company.