Former Unaoil Chiefs Plead Guilty to U.S. Bribery Charges
31 Ottobre 2019 - 12:58AM
Dow Jones News
By Dylan Tokar
Former top executives of the Monaco-based Unaoil Group pleaded
guilty to foreign bribery charges, three years after a series of
articles by an Australian media company implicated the oil-services
firm in a world-wide corruption scheme.
Unaoil's former chief executive, Cyrus Ahsani, and its former
chief operations officer, Saman Ahsani, reached plea agreements
with U.S. prosecutors in March charging them with conspiring to
violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Justice Department
said Wednesday.
The brothers helped pay millions of dollars in bribes to
officials across Africa and the Middle East, according to court
documents filed in a federal court in Houston, which were unsealed
Wednesday.
The company's former business development director, Steven
Hunter, also pleaded guilty to an FCPA conspiracy charge in a
separate agreement in August, the Justice Department said.
The Ahsani brothers are set to be sentenced in April in the U.S.
District Court for the Southern District of Texas, the department
said. Mr. Hunter's sentencing is scheduled for March.
A lawyer for the Ahsanis and a lawyer for Mr. Hunter declined to
comment on the announcement. All three are U.K. nationals,
according to the Justice Department.
Unaoil was the subject of articles in 2016 by Australia's
Fairfax Media, which alleged that the group had paid bribes on
behalf of a number of prominent companies in the oil-and-gas
sector.
The reports prompted investigations by the U.S. and U.K.
governments. The Serious Fraud Office, the U.K.'s major economic
crimes prosecutor, in 2018 launched criminal proceedings against
two Unaoil units.
U.K prosecutors have also brought charges against four
individuals in connection with the Unaoil probe. A former Unaoil
partner pleaded guilty to bribery conspiracy charges in July. Three
others are scheduled to begin trial in January.
The Ahsani brothers, who are also nationals of Iran, hail from a
wealthy Monacan family. Until 2011, Cyrus Ahsani was also a U.S.
citizen, according to the Justice Department.
A number of oil-and-gas companies have disclosed government
investigations related to the Unaoil matter.
Documents unsealed in the Texas court on Wednesday named Dutch
oil-services firm SBM Offshore NV and a former Ohio-based
subsidiary of British engineering company Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC
as clients of Unaoil.
Rolls-Royce in 2017 reached settlements totaling more than $800
million with U.S., U.K. and Brazilian prosecutors. The U.K.
agreement covered conduct by Rolls-Royce and the Ohio-based
subsidiary that was uncovered by the SFO's investigation into the
company's use of Unaoil, according to the judge who approved the
settlement.
Later that year, SBM Offshore agreed to pay $238 million in a
settlement with the Justice Department over bribery allegations
spanning three continents. A representative of SBM Offshore didn't
immediately reply to a request for comment. The company had
previously reached a separate settlement with Dutch
prosecutors.
Write to Dylan Tokar at dylan.tokar@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 30, 2019 19:43 ET (23:43 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Grafico Azioni Rolls-royce (LSE:RR.)
Storico
Da Feb 2024 a Mar 2024
Grafico Azioni Rolls-royce (LSE:RR.)
Storico
Da Mar 2023 a Mar 2024