Many will cheer the news that engineering and oil services companies Halliburton and Kellogg Brown & Root have been fined for bribery. But this is no occasion for finger-pointing. By exposing and punishing offenders, the US, far from embarrassing itself, has shown the strength of its laws.

Last week, KBR and its former parent company Halliburton settled charges of violating the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, accepting fines of $579m – the second largest ever for FCPA violations. To secure a deal for a gas liquefaction plant in Nigeria, KBR paid over $180m in bribes to top-level Nigerian government and national oil company officials. The account of KBR’s corruption – the company and its then-chairman Albert Jack Stanley pleaded guilty – resembles the stuff of action films, complete with cash-filled suitcases. But there is nothing entertaining about this case. It amounts to looting – no euphemism will do – from the ordinary people of Nigeria, most of whom must survive on less than $2 a day according to the World Bank.