Across The Pond
The United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced an enforcement action against Ultra Electronics Holdings Ltd (a British manufacturer of electronic systems for the international defence and aerospace market) in connection with bribery schemes in Oman and Algeria.
As stated in the SFO release, the company “acknowledged accountability for failure to prevent bribery” and a judge “approved a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) requiring [the company] to pay the penalty, plus £4.8 million in SFO investigation costs. In addition to the financial penalty and costs, the DPA requires the company to meet strict conditions and demonstrate genuine and sustained reform under the scrutiny of the court.”
Paying Whistleblowers In UK Criminal Cases – Why The US Model Won’t Work in the UK Legal System.
A guest post from Judy Krieg. Krieg is currently a partner at DLA Piper and previously served as a Joint Head of Fraud, Bribery, and Corruption at the UK Serious Fraud Office. Her experience also includes being an enforcement lawyer at the UK Financial Services Authority (now the Financial Conduct Authority) handling criminal and regulatory matters and in-house experience, including as Chief Compliance Officer of Rolls Royce plc and Willis and in other compliance roles at Microsoft and Red Robin Gourmet Burgers.
The UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is suggesting that the UK should “follow the US” and find a way to pay whistleblowers in corporate criminal cases. But the UK is not the US. The complexities of dealing with – much less paying – monies in corporate criminal cases are clear from US and UK experience. I know this first-hand from the Rolls-Royce plc (RR) investigation (resulting in 18 criminal charges resolved through DPAs with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and SFO), as well as the Red Robin Gourmet Burgers (RRGB) SEC investigation in the US.
U.K. Brings Enforcement Action Against Former Glencore Employees
In 2022, Glencore (a commodities company incorporated in the United Kingdom and headquartered in Switzerland) resolved a net $443 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action regarding conduct in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil, Venezuela, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.” (See here for the prior post).
In summary fashion, the DOJ alleged:
“From at least in or about 2007 up to and including in or about 2018, Glencore, through certain of its employees and agents, while acting on behalf of Glencore, together with its co-conspirators, knowingly and willfully conspired and agreed with others to corruptly provide more than $100 million in payments and other things of value to various intermediaries with the intent that a significant portion of these payments would be used to pay bribes to and for the benefit of foreign officials to secure an improper advantage and to influence those foreign officials in order to obtain or retain business in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil, Venezuela, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
Issues To Consider From Britain’s First Conviction Of A Foreign Public Official Under The Bribery Act
Today’s post is from Zulfi Meerza (a lawyer and former prosecutor at financial crime specialists Rahman Ravelli in the United Kingdom) concerning a recent U.K. enforcement action against a foreign public official.
The jail sentence imposed on Romy Andrianarisoa is significant for being the first time a foreign official has been convicted in the UK for bribery.
Andrianarisoa, a former Chief of Staff to the president of Madagascar, and her French associate Philippe Tabuteau were jailed after a trial in London where the evidence included recordings of the two of them soliciting bribes from an undercover officer. Andrianarisoa was sentenced to three years and six months, and Tabuteau was sentenced to two years and three months.
The pair were charged in August 2023 after requesting money in exchange for their help securing an exclusive mining joint venture with the government of Madagascar. They had attempted to solicit a bribe from Gemfields, a UK-based mining company.
From Across The Pond
This post highlights developments in the United Kingdom regarding foreign bribery enforcement actions.
As highlighted here, a director of PV Energy Ltd (Peter Virdee also known as Hardip Singh) was charged with bribing a foreign public official in that he allegedly bribed Asot Michael (a Member of Parliament and Government Minister of Tourism, Economic Development Investment and Energy for Antigua and Barbuda) to benefit PV Energy Ltd. PV Energy ltd was simultaneously charged with failing to prevent bribery in relation to the same offences.