– Firm Paid $240m Fine to US Justice Department
ITALIAN energy company Eni said on Wednesday that the U.S. government has dismissed a case against a former subsidiary accused of corrupting Nigerian officials.
Eni said in a statement that the U.S. Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss charges related to former subsidiary Snamprogetti Netherlands BV.
The company, now under the control of Saipem, another Eni subsidiary, was accused of corrupting Nigerian public officials in a deal to build a liquefied natural gas plant in Bonny Island.
The Italian energy company said the dismissal “definitively concludes the U.S. criminal proceedings against Snamprogetti Netherlands BV.”
The Justice Department noted in a 2010 filing that Snamprogetti agreed to pay a $240 million penalty to the U.S. Treasury Department.
“The dismissal of the criminal information follows the two-year period set out in the deferred prosecution agreement entered into in July 2010 between Eni, Saipem and the U.S. Department of Justice, and of the fulfillment by Eni and Saipem of the commitments contained therein,” Eni said.
A subsidiary of Eni was suspected of giving bribes to people close to the president of Kazakhstan through 2007. Eni is also under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for alleged corruption in Libya.
This is the second major dismissal of a case, following similar settlements as entered into by ENI with the US government, involving corruption by American-related firms with business interest in Nigeria.
In January, Japanese trading company Marubeni Corp. said it agreed to pay $54.6 million to the U.S. government for its role in the bribery of Nigerian energy officials.
The U.S. Justice Department, in a statement, said four companies comprising the TSKJ joint venture, in violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, bribed government officials in Nigeria for a contract to build a liquefied natural gas plant.
The joint venture hired Japanese trading house Marubeni to get engineering contracts through bribes for the LNG project planned for Nigeria’s Bonny Island, the government said.
Marubeni announced it entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice regarding the accusations.
“As part of the investigation, the (Justice Department) conducted an investigation into Marubeni, leading to entry of the agreement,” the company said. “Under the agreement, Marubeni will pay $54.6 million to the (Justice Department).”
The TSKJ consortium consisted of French corporation Technip, Italian company Snamprogetti, Japan’s JGC Corp., and M.W. Kellogg Ltd., predecessor to Kellogg, Brown and Root.
KBR in 2009 pleaded guilty for its role in the Nigerian bribery scheme.
“Several” individuals have entered guilty pleas as well, the Justice Department said, adding all of the companies involved in the scheme have now been held accountable in the “massive, decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials in connection with the so-called Bonny Island project.”