A Dutch company that was part of a joint venture that won $6 billion in contracts to build liquefied natural gas facilities in Nigeria has agreed to pay $240 million to resolve bribery charges, Justice Department officials said Wednesday.
Snamprogetti Netherlands BV and its former parent company, ENI SpA, also agreed to jointly pay $125 million to settle a related civil complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The settlement is the latest chapter in a long-running probe into allegations of bribery by corporations seeking lucrative business contracts in Nigeria going back to the mid-1990s.
Snamprogetti Netherlands BV, which is based in Amsterdam, was part of a joint venture that included former Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., and France's Technip SA.
Federal prosecutors say the Snamprogetti authorized the joint venture to hire two agents and a Japanese trading company to bribe Nigerian government officials so the joint venture could win engineering and construction contracts for a liquefied natural gas plant on the African nation's Bonny Island.
All told, the joint venture paid more than $180 million to the agents and the trading company, funds intended to be used, in part, as payoffs for the Nigerian government officials, prosecutors said.
In documents filed Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, prosecutors charged Snamprogetti with one count of conspiracy and one count of aiding and abetting violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it unlawful to bribe foreign government officials or company executives to obtain or retain business.
The government agreed to defer prosecution on the criminal case against Snamprogetti for two years, however, as part of a deal it reached with the company, its parent, Italian oil and gas contractor Saipem SpA and ENI.
Under the terms of the deal, Snamprogetti and the other companies agreed to cooperate with ongoing investigations and set up a compliance and ethics program, among other requirements. If the companies comply, the Justice Department agreed to dismiss the criminal charges at the end of two years.
Last month, Technip SA agreed to pay $240 million to settle similar accusations. The company also agreed to pay $98 million to settle a related civil complaint by the SEC.
In February 2009, Houston-based KBR pleaded guilty to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with the bribery scheme. KBR and Halliburton agreed to pay $579 million in criminal and civil fines. KBR split from Halliburton in 2007.
Albert "Jack" Stanley, a former KBR CEO, pleaded guilty in 2008 to federal bribery charges for his role in the scheme. He is set to be sentenced Sept. 23.
Source: AP |