The first firm to be prosecuted in Britain for overseas corruption and breaching UN sanctions is to pay £6.6 million (US$10.55 million) in fines and penalties, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said.
Bridge manufacturer Mabey & Johnson was convicted of two corruption charges relating to contracts in Jamaica and Ghana between 1993 and 2001.
It also pleaded guilty to applying for contracts under the Iraq oil-for-food program in 2001-2002 in breach of UN sanctions.
London’s Southwark Crown Court was told the company paid out £1 million in sweeteners it thought helped it to win contracts worth £60 million, the Press Association reported.
A subsequent investigation found it had also paid bribes to individuals in Madagascar, Angola, Mozambique and Bangladesh.
The penalties paid by the firm, which is now under new management, include fines of £3.5 million, a confiscation order of £1.1 million and total reparations of just more than £1.4 million to Ghana, Iraq and Jamaica, as well as costs.
SFO director Richard Alderman called the ruling “a landmark outcome.”
Five of the company’s eight directors stepped down early last year after the company approached the Serious Fraud Office itself to say it might have engaged in corrupt practices and a new management team was installed.
“What our company did in the past is a matter of deep regret,” managing director Peter Lloyd said. “We have now made a fresh start, having wiped the slate clean of these offenses. These costs will hurt the company and they are a real punishment.”
Ghanaian President John Atta Mills has now launched investigations into whether Ghanaian politicians had accepted bribes, the country’s attorney-general Betty Mould-Iddrisu said.
“The president is concerned and has directed that we investigate the whole matter to get further information from the United Kingdom authorities on what’s gone on and if there’s any current action,” she told reporters.
Lawyers said the conviction marked a watershed and sent out a warning to other British firms.
“It is just one of many signs of the renewed vigor on the part of the UK authorities to tackle overseas corruption,” Michael Roberts, a corruption and bribery lawyer at international law firm Lovells.
“Particularly with tough new legislation currently before parliament in the shape of the Bribery Bill, corporates more than ever need to be alert to the risks of corruption and to ensure that they have adequate systems and controls in place,” he said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last