Tag Archives: bribery

Expro to pay $8m to settle Angola bribery allegations

Expro Group has settled with the SEC over allegations that Frank’s International paid bribes to Angolan officials between 2008 and 2014. Expro merged with Frank’s in 2021 in a deal that valued Frank’s at $742 million.

Expro has agreed to pay $4.2 million which represents the profits made by Frank’s on the Angolan contracts after Frank’s completed its IPO in 2013. In addition, Expro will pay $0.8 million in interest and $3 million in penalties.

Frank’s primarily supplied tubular services and technology used in deepwater drilling. Starting in 2007, it tried to increase its business with the ultimate end customer, Sonangol, the state-owned Angolan oil producer. Initially, Sonangol directed Frank’s customer to use a competitor to Frank’s that made a bigger investment in Angola. But a senior Sonangol executive said they could change its mind if Frank’s established a consulting company and paid five percent of the value of the contract to the consulting company for the benefit of high-ranking Sonangol officials.

Instead of creating a consulting company, Frank’s hired an agent in Angola in November 2007 without a contract in place. The first payment was made in January 2008. Towards the end of 2008, the Frank’s CFO and Chief Accounting Officer started asking questions about the commission payments, which, at that point, amounted to $688,000. The regional senior management then approved a back-dated contract.

In 2011, a new agency agreement was created. This provided for a 10% sales commission, although only 2.2% was actually paid in commissions, with the rest being used for bribes.

Between 2008 and 2014, Frank’s paid the Angolan agent approximately $5.5 million from Frank’s Angolan Operations, a portion of which was paid to the senior Sonangol executive. Frank’s received at least $4,176,858 in post-IPO net profits from its contracts with oil companies where Sonangol was the ultimate customer and for which the Sonangol executive possessed decision-making authority.

Frank’s self-reported the issue to the SEC and Department of Justice in 2016 and Expro made a reserve of $8 million, that was recorded as an additional liability on the acquisition of Frank’s.

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2023/34-97381.pdf

Foster Wheeler agrees to pay $177 million to resolve Brazil bribery allegations

The Scheme

In 2011 Foster Wheeler hired a Country Manager for Brazil to identify opportunities in the country. The Country Manager reported to the Houston office.

Later that year, an Italian agent learned from a Brazilian agent (an ex-Petrobras employee) that Petrobras were seeking bids on the design of a gas-to-chemical fertilizer plant. Both the Italian agent and the then-Chairman of Foster Wheeler were regular customers of a high-end men’s clothing store in New York. The Store sales manager introduced the two. After the meeting, the chairman forwarded details to the acting CEO, without vouching for the legitimacy of the agent.

In turn, the CEO forwarded the information to the Brazil Country Manager, who responded that the company should not use the Italian agent as ‘we would send a wrong message in the market here’.

The Italian agent was affiliated with a Unaoil, a Monaco company heavily involved in bribery. See my blog post from October 2019 here. When Foster Wheeler did its due diligence on Unaoil, they declined to use it because of its possible violations of US and UK sanctions laws. Despite that, the CEO and COO offered the agent a 2% commission.

Foster Wheeler later agreed a 2% commission with the Brazilian agent. As a result, the company won the front-end engineering and design contract in late 2012. In total, Foster Wheeler ended up paying over $1.1 million in bribes.

In 2014, Petrobras elected not to proceed with the construction phase of the project.

The Settlement

Wood Group issued a press release stating it will pay $177 million over the next three years to resolve all allegations. This covers payments to the UK, US, and Brazil, though the company did not disclose the exact split.

Foster Wheeler is paying the Department of Justice $18.4 million. It is also paying the SEC $22.7 million for FCPA and book-keeping violations (if you are going to bribe someone, you must record it as a bribe). Both will be reduced by penalties paid to Brazil and the UK. The US will receive a net number of $17.8 million.

https://www.woodplc.com/news/latest-press-releases/2021/wood-reaches-resolution-on-legacy-investigations

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/amec-foster-wheeler-energy-limited-agrees-pay-over-18-million-resolve-charges-related-bribery

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2021-112