Former SBM Offshore Sales Manager Gets Prison Time for Bribery

Kirstin Ridley
Tuesday, March 2, 2021

A former sales manager of Dutch energy services company SBM Offshore was sentenced on Monday to three-and-a-half years in jail after being convicted by a London jury of bribing public officials to win oil contracts in post-occupation Iraq.

Paul Bond, 68, was found guilty of two counts of bribery after a retrial at London's Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday . His sentencing hearing was delayed after the judge developed COVID-19 symptoms and self-isolated.

Bond is the fourth executive convicted after a five-year Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into Monaco-based consultancy Unaoil, which uncovered bribes of more than $17 million to secure contracts worth $1.7 billion for Unaoil and its Western, blue-chip clients.

Bond had denied wrongdoing.

Prosecutors had said that Unaoil employees worked on behalf of SBM Offshore and with Bond to pay more than $900,000 in bribes to Iraqi public officials at Iraq's South Oil Company and the Ministry of Oil to win a $55 million contract for offshore mooring buoys by skewing a competitive tender in their favour.

Basil Al Jarah, Unaoil's former Iraq partner, was last year sentenced to three years and four months in jail after pleading guilty to five bribery counts in 2019. Unaoil's former territory managers for Iraq - Ziad Akle and Stephen Whiteley - received five and three-year sentences respectively.

The SFO investigation originally centred on the prominent Ahsani family, which ran Unaoil. However, failed extradition attempts culminating in a clash in Italy with U.S. prosecutors over the extradition of Saman Ahsani in 2018 scuppered the British agency's attempts to pursue prosecution in Britain.

In October 2019 Saman Ahsani and his brother Cyrus pleaded guilty in the United States to being part of a 17-year scheme to pay millions of dollars in bribes to officials in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. Their father and Unaoil founder, Ata Ahsani, has not been prosecuted.

SBM Offshore, which has declined to comment, was fined $238 million by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2017 under a deferred prosection agreement.

(Reporting by Kirstin Ridley Editing by David Goodman )

Categories: Energy People Middle East Industry News Activity People & Company News

Related Stories

Southeast Asia’s 2GW Cross-Border Offshore Wind Scheme Targets 2034 Buildout

Viridien to Shed More Light on Malaysia’s Offshore Oil and Gas Potential

US Pressure on India Could Propel Russia's Shadow Oil Exports

RINA Wins FEED Contract for Petronas’ Flagship CCS Project in Malaysia

Pakistan, Türkiye Deepen Oil and Gas Ties with Offshore Indus-C Block Deal

Vietsovpetro Brings BK-24 Oil Platform Online Two Months Early

MODEC Ramps Up Hammerhead FPSO Work After ExxonMobil's Go-Ahead

Timor Gap Boosts Stake in Finder Energy’s Timor-Leste Oil Fields

SBM Offshore Starts Construction of FSO for Trion Oil Field off Mexico

Brownfield Output Decline Accelerates, says IEA

Current News

Malaysia’s Petronas and Oman’s OQEP Strengthen Oil and Gas Ties

Southeast Asia’s 2GW Cross-Border Offshore Wind Scheme Targets 2034 Buildout

Pharos Energy Kicks Off Drilling Campaign Offshore Vietnam

Viridien to Shed More Light on Malaysia’s Offshore Oil and Gas Potential

US Pressure on India Could Propel Russia's Shadow Oil Exports

Energy Drilling’s EDrill-2 Rig Starts Ops for PTTEP in Gulf of Thailand

RINA Wins FEED Contract for Petronas’ Flagship CCS Project in Malaysia

ABL Secures Rig Moving Assignment with India's ONGC

Pakistan, Türkiye Deepen Oil and Gas Ties with Offshore Indus-C Block Deal

Eni-Petronas Gas Joint Venture Up for Launch in 2026

Subscribe for AOG Digital E‑News

AOG Digital E-News is the subsea industry's largest circulation and most authoritative ENews Service, delivered to your Email three times per week

https://accounts.newwavemedia.com