WASHINGTON, July 20: The embattled US oil services company Halliburton, which until four years ago was headed by Vice President Richard Cheney, is under grand jury investigation for suspected illegal dealings with Iran through a Cayman Islands subsidiary, the firm disclosed.

The company denied any US laws have been broken. But the disclosure, made in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, came as the Texas-based corporation faces multiple domestic and international probes into its operations extending from Iraq to Nigeria.

"We have a Cayman Islands subsidiary with operations in Iran, and other European subsidiaries that manufacture goods destined for Iran and/or render services in Iran," Halliburton Vice President Margaret Carriere acknowledged in the filing.

She said the company received this month a grand jury subpoena requesting documents related to the operations, the nature of which remains undisclosed. In an ominous sign, Halliburton has also been notified that the investigation, which was initially launched the Treasury Department in 2001, has now been handed over to the Justice Department.

US law bars US-incorporated entities, citizens and residents from engaging in commercial and financial transactions with Iran. But Carriere insisted there was no wrongdoing on the part of the firm.

"We completed a study in 2003 of our activities in Iran during 2002 and 2003 and concluded that these activities were in full compliance with applicable sanction regulations," she said.

A loophole in the law apparently allows US firms to circumvent the sanctions through foreign-based subsidiaries, if their dealings are not directly managed by US citizens or from US soil, according to legal experts.

There was no indication whether Halliburton had already complied with the grand jury request, but Carriere said the company intended to fully cooperate with the government's probe.

Mr Cheney was chairman of Halliburton from 1995 until his selection as President George Bush's running mate in the 2000 presidential race. The grand jury probe is added to a multitude of other investigations faced by the politically-connected Texas conglomerate over work done by its affiliates in Iraq and Nigeria.

The Pentagon and the Justice Department are looking into allegations that Kellogg Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary that has secured an exclusive oil supply contract in Iraq, may have overcharged the US government by 61 million dollars.

The scandal dates back to October, when Democratic lawmakers Henry Waxman and John Dingell wrote to the White House insisting the Texas company might be overcharging the US government between 65 and 75 cents for every gallon of gasoline it shipped to Iraq from Kuwait.

Another damaging imbroglio involves allegedly overpriced meals served by Halliburton to US troops in the two countries, which prompted the army to withhold payments on some of the company's invoices. In France, authorities are investigating if the company paid bribes to secure a Nigerian natural gas project. -AFP