CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
Willbros Gets Bribery Prosecution Deferred
22
Corporate Crime Reporter 20, May 14, 2008
Willbros Group Inc. and a unit, Willbros International, entered into a deferred
prosecution agreement
to settle allegations that the company paid $6 million in bribes to Nigerian
government officials.
As part of the agreement, the companies accepted responsibility for their employees who violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and agreed to pay a criminal penalty of $22 million.
The Department of Justice agreed to defer prosecution of the companies for three years and the companies agreed to retain for a period of three years an independent compliance monitor to assess the company's implementation of and compliance with new internal policies and procedures.
If Willbros Group and Willbros International abide by the terms of the agreement, the Department will dismiss the information when the term of the agreement ends.
At the same time, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today settled an enforcement action against Willbros Group and four employees. The company will pay $10.3 million to settle the SEC action.
Willbros Group was represented before the SEC by William Baker of Latham & Watkins and before the Justice Department by Robert Tarun of Baker & McKenzie.
The SEC’s complaint names Jason Steph, a former supervisory employee in Nigeria, Gerald Jansen, a former administrative supervisor in Nigeria, Lloyd Biggers, a former employee in Nigeria, and Carlos Galvez, a former accounting employee in Bolivia.
The SEC alleges that, beginning in 2003, Willbros Group engaged in a scheme to pay more than $6 million in undisclosed bribes to Nigerian government officials and employees of an operator of a joint venture majority-owned by the Nigerian government in order to obtain two significant contracts that resulted in net profits of nearly $9 million.
SEC officials said that Willbros Group and former employees used fabricated invoices to obtain cash from the company's Houston headquarters to bribe Nigerian tax and court officials.
Willbros Group and its employees allegedly paid a $300,000 bribe to officials of an oil-and-gas company owned by the Ecuador government in order to obtain a $3 million contract, and implemented a fraudulent tax avoidance scheme in Bolivia that resulted in material misstatements in Willbros Group's financial statements.
The
individuals entered consent decrees to settle their cases.
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