East-Trophigura boss convicted bribery in historical case
The Supreme Court of Switzerland has convicted the trade of veteran traffic and one of its senior officials on the payment made by the firm to achieve access to Angola’s attractive oil market.
In a historic case, the court handed over to the company’s former British Chief Operations Officer Mike Venrerit – who has also competed as a racing driver – 32 months jail sentence and the company was fined $ 148m (£ 119m) .
This is the first time an entire company has been charged by the Supreme Court in Switzerland, and is rare of bribery of senior employees.
Trafigura lawyers said that they intend to appeal against the decision.
All the elements of a financial thriller in the case against Trafigura were: a series of shell companies located in the offshore havans like millions of dollars, shady middlemen and Virgin Islands.
Trafigura strategy, the court heard, was to install a complex payment web, through which an officer with Angola’s state oil company was paid around $ 5m (£ 4.02m; € 4.81) between 2009 and 2011. .
Documents submitted by Swiss prosecutors to the court showed authorized payments on the traffic notepper of Trafigura.
The strategy appeared to work: In the next few years, the court heard, Angola signed a contract of approximately $ 144m (£ 115.93; € 138.56) with Trafigura.
Trafigura, whose lawyers appeared fast before the verdict, denied bribery. The company said that its own compliance and anti -corruption measures were independently evaluated and found to be excellent.
But the sheer weight of evidence – which included dozens of documents, emails and memos – a separate picture revealed: strict corruption measures on paper but in reality a complex structure to remove those measures. A middleman named “Sri Non-Complent” was sitting in an anonymous Geneva office in his heart.
The case will send a chill through commodity brokers worldwide, but especially in Geneva, where Trafigura and many other commodity trading houses are headquarters.
In a terrible coincidence, the night before the verdict, the five -star Hotel des Burgas caught fire – where, shown in court documents, an Angolman officer stayed in 2008 at the cost of traffic.
Swiss federal prosecutors hope that the case would be a symbol that the old ways of doing business are finally over.
He made allegations in the Supreme Court in Switzerland, reserved for the worst crimes, such as terrorist crime.
Trafigura is now facing a large fine and wnerite, who was in court for the verdict and denied the allegations, stating that he should serve at least one year of his 32 -month sentence in jail. However, he was not immediately detained, pending an appeal.
