The general equivalent to the Department of Justice in the United Kingdom is the Serious Fraud Office (SFO).
Compared to the DOJ, the SFO does a much better job of keeping the public informed of its investigations.
Recently, the SFO updated its case archive concerning two long-standing bribery investigations involving ENRC Ltd. and Rio Tinto.
In connection with the May Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action against Glencore, the U.K. Serious Fraud Office also announced that a Glencore entity was charged with seven counts of bribery in connection with its oil operations.
Yesterday, the SFO announced that:
“Glencore Energy (UK) Ltd has … been convicted on all charges of bribery brought against it by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). At Southwark Crown Court, the company admitted to multiple counts of paying bribes to secure access to oil and generate illicit profit. The SFO’s investigation exposed that Glencore, via its employees and agents, paid bribes of over $28 million for preferential access to oil, including increased cargoes, valuable grades of oil and preferable dates of delivery. These actions were approved by the company across its oil operations in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan. Glencore will be sentenced on 2nd and 3rd November his year.”
This March 15th post discussed a future $29 million “declination with disgorgement” enforcement action disclosed by Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. in connection with its 2019 acquisition of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc (JLT).
On March 22nd, the DOJ quietly updated its FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy declinations page by posting the March 18th “declination with disgorgement” letter.
The last time the DOJ self-identified an FCPA enforcement action as a “declination” was approximately 1.5 years ago (in August 2020).
Petrofac (a U.K. based oil and gas company with ADRs registered with the SEC) has been under scrutiny since 2016 regarding its relationship with Unaoil. (See here for the prior post).
In 2019, the U.K. Serious Fraud Office announced that David Lufkin (the former Global Head of Sales for Petrofac International Ltd.) pleaded guilty to eleven counts of bribery related to “the making of corrupt offers to influence the award of contracts to Petrofac worth in excess of USD $730 million in Iraq and in excess of USD $3.5 billion in Saudi Arabia.” (See here).
Recently, the SFO announced that it has “secured the conviction of Petrofac Limited for seven separate counts of failure to prevent bribery between 2011 and 2017.”
Yesterday, the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office announced two related Bribery Act enforcement actions.
Well sort of, because the SFO did not identify the companies at issue or the specifics of the enforcement actions due to “legal reasons.”
In pertinent part, the SFO release states:
