Energy Services Company Convicted for Failing to Prevent Bribery
The Southwark Crown Court convicted energy services company Petrofac Ltd. on seven separate counts of failing to prevent bribery between 2011 and 2017, the United Kingdom's Serious Fraud Office said. The court ordered the company to pay more than $104 million in fines. Petrofac pleaded guilty to failing to stop former senior executives of the Petrofac subsidiaries from using “agents” to bribe foreign officials with the goal of winning oil contracts in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Petrofac Group's former sales chief, David Lufkin, was sentenced to a two-year custodial sentence, which was suspended for 18 months.
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Petrofac executives engaged in “elaborate schemes” made up of “complex and deliberately opaque methods” to bribe the foreign officials including disguising payments through subcontractors, creating fake contracts for fictitious services and passing bribes through more than one agent and one country, the SFO said.
“This draws a line under a regrettable period of our history,” Petrofac Chairman Rene Medori said. He said the company has taken responsibility and now has “a comprehensive compliance and governance regime that meets or exceeds international best practice. The past behaviour uncovered by the SFO would not be possible today, and we look to the future a better and more focused company, well positioned to capitalise on the opportunities we see before us.”