Oil Nationalisation and Managerial Disclosure: The Case of Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, 1933-1951

The principal aim of this thesis is to contribute towards the understanding of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC, now British Petroleum) practices in Iran and thereby providing a clear picture of how nationalisation evolved on 1st May 1951 and how it was perceived by the stock market. Nationalisation brought into sharp focus issues affecting key AIOC stakeholder groups, including Iranian employees, Iranian government and UK investors which became the subject of claim and counter-claim from the AIOC board and Iranian nationalist opinion. As a consequence of these disputed claims, a propaganda battle became a crucial ingredient of the crisis, not least because a key objective of the AIOC management was to maintain investor confidence in the face of a major threat to its asset base but also reflecting the AIOC’s ability to defend itself from the claims made by the Iranian government about unfairness in the sharing of proceeds, and discrimination against Iranians. In fact, this was crucial in absolving the company from any blame for the international crisis.
As a result, in considering the above effects, by using AIOC as a case study, contrasts are drawn between the AIOC’s management’s public view of the crisis and the actual events as documented in the literature, official papers, and financial records. It is worth noting that this research will examine the extent to which the company exploited and manifested Iranian rights by drawing on evidence from major neglected documents. Furthermore, this research will examine the degree to which imperialism has been applied to the Iranian society.
The study shows that the AIOC was not prepared to give up any of its control over the Iranian oil resources nor to improve the concession for the Iranians. With that rationale, the AIOC failed to fulfil its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) obligations towards the Iranian employees and the company’s treatment of Iran was unfair in terms of profit sharing. The study also highlights that the AIOC management did a good job in maintaining the investors’ confidence and in defending the company from the Iranian claims at a time of the nationalisation crisis.