An officer of SBM Offshore convicted of bribery in the UK
Kaieteur News – Voice of Energy – A former oil and gas chief has been convicted of conspiring to bribe public officials to win contracts in Iraq, following the collapse of Saddam Hussain’s regime.
A jury found Paul Bond, a senior sales manager at SBM Offshore, guilty of two counts of conspiracy to defraud charges following a repeat of his case at Southwark Crown Court in London.
This is the latest in a series of convictions relating to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) Unaoil bribery case.
The investigation has revealed the payment of bribes worth over $ 17 million (£ 12m) to secure contracts worth $ 1.7bn (£ 1.2bn).
Last year, the SFO secured the convictions of co-conspirators and former controllers of Unaoil territory in Iraq, Stephen Whiteley, who hails from Aberdeen, and Ziad Akle.
The pair were sentenced to three and five years respectively.
Unaoil’s former partner in Iraq, Basil Al Jarah, also received three years and four months’ imprisonment after admitting to five offenses of conspiracy to defraud charges.
All four men were convicted of paying bribes to win contracts linked to the efforts of the new Iraqi state to rebuild its war-torn economy in 2007.
To do this, the Iraqi Oil Ministry produced a ‘master plan’ and set out a strategy to quadruple Iraq’s oil exports within five years.
He asked the state-owned South Oil Company (SOC) to commission new oil pipelines and offshore mooring buoys (SPMs) in the Persian Gulf.
Consulting on behalf of SBM Offshore and working directly with Paul Bond, Unaoil employees paid over $ 900,000 (£ 637,834) in bribes to Iraqi public officials at the SOC and the Oil Ministry.
It led to SBM Offshore, which is headquartered in the Netherlands, winning a $ 55m (£ 39m) contract to provide SPMs.
These bribes purchased access to sensitive information about SOC’s competitive tendering requirements, enabling Bond and others to skew the process.
Bond is due to be sentenced on Friday, February 26, 2021.
Lisa Osofsky, director of the SFO, said: “These projects were vital to rebuilding Iraq’s oil sector and the future prosperity of the new state economy. Bond and his co-conspirators knew this and yet corrupted the tender process for financial gain.
“We are proud to have ensured that the four men will be punished for their harmful crimes, and we will continue to pursue such cases relentlessly throughout the world.”
The SFO launched an investigation into Unaoil in 2016, focusing on business deals including Halliburton-KBR, Petrofac, ABB, Leighton Holdings, Rolls Royce and Amec Foster Wheeler.