The first firm to be prosecuted in Britain for overseas corruption and breaching UN sanctions is to pay £6.6 million (US$10.55 million) in fines and penalties, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said.
Bridge manufacturer Mabey & Johnson was convicted of two corruption charges relating to contracts in Jamaica and Ghana between 1993 and 2001.
It also pleaded guilty to applying for contracts under the Iraq oil-for-food program in 2001-2002 in breach of UN sanctions.
London’s Southwark Crown Court was told the company paid out £1 million in sweeteners it thought helped it to win contracts worth £60 million, the Press Association reported.
A subsequent investigation found it had also paid bribes to individuals in Madagascar, Angola, Mozambique and Bangladesh.
The penalties paid by the firm, which is now under new management, include fines of £3.5 million, a confiscation order of £1.1 million and total reparations of just more than £1.4 million to Ghana, Iraq and Jamaica, as well as costs.
SFO director Richard Alderman called the ruling “a landmark outcome.”
Five of the company’s eight directors stepped down early last year after the company approached the Serious Fraud Office itself to say it might have engaged in corrupt practices and a new management team was installed.
“What our company did in the past is a matter of deep regret,” managing director Peter Lloyd said. “We have now made a fresh start, having wiped the slate clean of these offenses. These costs will hurt the company and they are a real punishment.”
Ghanaian President John Atta Mills has now launched investigations into whether Ghanaian politicians had accepted bribes, the country’s attorney-general Betty Mould-Iddrisu said.
“The president is concerned and has directed that we investigate the whole matter to get further information from the United Kingdom authorities on what’s gone on and if there’s any current action,” she told reporters.
Lawyers said the conviction marked a watershed and sent out a warning to other British firms.
“It is just one of many signs of the renewed vigor on the part of the UK authorities to tackle overseas corruption,” Michael Roberts, a corruption and bribery lawyer at international law firm Lovells.
“Particularly with tough new legislation currently before parliament in the shape of the Bribery Bill, corporates more than ever need to be alert to the risks of corruption and to ensure that they have adequate systems and controls in place,” he said.
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