Red Notice Newsletter - May 2018

ANTI-CORRUPTION DEVELOPMENTS

New Unaoil Charges by U.K. Serious Fraud Office

On May 22, 2018, the United Kingdom's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) charged two additional individuals in the ongoing probe related to allegations that Unaoil SAM made improper payments on behalf of companies in the oil and gas sectors to governments in the Middle East. Basil Al Jarah, Unaoil's former territory manager for Iraq, and Ziad Akle, Unaoil's former "Iraq partner," face charges that they conspired to make corrupt payments on behalf of Leighton Contractors Singapore PTE Ltd (a subsidiary of Australia-based Leighton Holdings now d/b/a CIMIC Group Limited) to secure a contract to build oil pipelines in Iraq in 2010. Al Jarah and Akle were first charged in November 2017 in connection with payments made on behalf of SBM Offshore. Two other Unaoil executives were also charged in connection with SBM Offshore payments.

The SFO's press release is available here. For more information, see coverage from the FCPA Blog here. Red Notice previously covered the Unaoil investigation in December 2017.

Four-Year Sentence for Chinese Businessman for UN Bribery Scheme

On May 11, 2018, Judge Vernon Broderick of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York sentenced Chinese businessman Ng Lap Seng to 48 months in prison and three years of supervised release for Ng's role in a scheme to bribe U.N. officials for the construction of a conference center in his hometown of Macau. Ng was convicted in July 2017 of money laundering, violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and U.S. domestic bribery laws, and engaging in conspiracy related to the bribery offenses. Ng is the first to be sentenced of six defendants who have been charged in this matter. Red Notice previously reported on events in this U.N. scheme in the April 2018 edition.

The Department of Justice's (DOJ) press release is available here. For more information, see coverage from Law360 here and from the FCPA Blog here.

New DOJ Policy to Limit "Duplicative Penalties"

On May 9, 2018, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced a new DOJ policy to encourage cooperation among U.S. law enforcement agencies to avoid levying multiple penalties for the same conduct against the same defendant. The policy is discussed in a new section of the U.S. Attorneys' Manual. In particular, the manual counsels that criminal enforcement authority should not be used "solely to persuade a company to pay a larger...

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