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(Bloomberg) — Gunvor Group Ltd. , one of the world’s most sensible oil traders, will pay more than $660 million in U. S. and Swiss fees for which the company paid bribes to Ecuadorian government officials to win contracts.
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The penalty, which is one of the harshest ever imposed on a commodity trading company, will include a $374. 5 million fine and forfeiture of another $287. 1 million, U. S. federal prosecutors said Friday at a court hearing in Brooklyn, New York. For this amount, approximately $93 million will be spent to settle the Swiss case.
Gunvor’s statement comes as the U. S. Department of Justice conducts a series of investigations into major oil investors in connection with illicit invoices to government officials. A week ago, in the same court, it was discovered that a former oil trader from the Vitol organization was guilty of bribing Mexican and Ecuadorian officials.
Jean-Baptiste Leclercq, Gunvor’s general representative, told U. S. District Judge Eric N. Vitaliano that the company had admitted to paying bribes between 2011 and 2020. As part of the deal with the U. S. , federal prosecutors said Gunvor’s statement is similar to that of former trader Raymond. behaviour. Kohut and two men who acted as intermediaries. Kohut pleaded guilty to U. S. fees in 2021 and admitted to paying more than $22 million in bribes for oil contracts between 2012 and 2020.
“As a company, Gunvor made mistakes at the time, which we regret and have worked diligently to correct,” Torbjörn Törnqvist, chairman of the Gunvor group and majority shareholder, said in a statement. it will never be tolerated. “
The data released across the United States is reminiscent of dubious transactions carried out in the not-too-distant afterlife through some of the largest commodity trading corporations, which made billions of dollars in profits thanks to volatility in energy markets resulting from the Covid pandemic. And then the encroachment of Ucrania. La lack of key resources has also led those corporations to establish links with governments around the world: just a few months ago, the Italian export credit firm guaranteed a €400 million ($433 million) loan to Gunvor in exchange for supplying fuel to the country.
Gunvor is the latest company to admit to paying bribes in the wake of a wide-ranging investigation into corruption in Ecuador’s oil sector. Vitol Group and Sargeant Marine have already admitted to bribing officials of the national oil company Petroecuador.
No agreement has yet been reached with Ecuador, though Gunvor said in his report that he does not believe the omnibus agreements “significantly exceed” its $650 million provision for such cases. Prosecutor Jonathan Lax said during the hearing that the Ecuadorian settlement would most likely amount to about $93 million.
Gunvor will pay a fine of 4. 3 million Swiss francs ($4. 86 million) to the Swiss prosecutor’s office.
Read more: Aguilar, former Vitol oil trader, guilty in U. S. corruption case
Former Vitol trader Javier Aguilar was found guilty last week of 3 counts of bribery and money laundering. During the trial, Nilsen Arias, Petroecuador’s former head of foreign industry, said he won bribes from Gunvor, as well as Vitol, Trafigura Group and Noble Group. and Marine Sergeant.
Gunvor admitted Friday that he participated in a bribery scheme to pay bribes to private individuals, adding that Arias, two middlemen who pleaded guilty and testified against Aguilar.
In 2019, the company agreed to pay $95 million to end an investigation through the Swiss attorney general, acknowledging that a former employee had bribed officials in the Republic of Congo.
Gunvor posted a record profit of $2. 4 billion in 2022. In addition to oil, the company trades in gas, electricity, coal, and metals.
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