No Result
View All Result
SUBSCRIBE | NO FEES, NO PAYWALLS
MANAGE MY SUBSCRIPTION
NEWSLETTER
Corporate Compliance Insights
  • Home
  • About
    • About CCI
    • CCI Magazine
    • Writing for CCI
    • Career Connection
    • NEW: CCI Press – Book Publishing
    • Advertise With Us
  • Explore Topics
    • See All Articles
    • Compliance
    • Ethics
    • Risk
    • FCPA
    • Governance
    • Fraud
    • Internal Audit
    • HR Compliance
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data Privacy
    • Financial Services
    • Well-Being at Work
    • Leadership and Career
    • Opinion
  • Vendor News
  • Library
    • Download Whitepapers & Reports
    • Download eBooks
    • New: Living Your Best Compliance Life by Mary Shirley
    • New: Ethics and Compliance for Humans by Adam Balfour
    • 2021: Raise Your Game, Not Your Voice by Lentini-Walker & Tschida
    • CCI Press & Compliance Bookshelf
  • Podcasts
    • Great Women in Compliance
    • Unless: The Podcast (Hemma Lomax)
  • Research
  • Webinars
  • Events
  • Subscribe
Jump to a Section
  • At the Office
    • Ethics
    • HR Compliance
    • Leadership & Career
    • Well-Being at Work
  • Compliance & Risk
    • Compliance
    • FCPA
    • Fraud
    • Risk
  • Finserv & Audit
    • Financial Services
    • Internal Audit
  • Governance
    • ESG
    • Getting Governance Right
  • Infosec
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data Privacy
  • Opinion
    • Adam Balfour
    • Jim DeLoach
    • Mary Shirley
    • Yan Tougas
No Result
View All Result
Corporate Compliance Insights
Home Featured

The FCPA Week That Was — Seven Individuals Charged for FCPA Violations

by Michael Volkov
November 29, 2017
in Featured, Governance
businessman in handcuffs

To all the “nattering nabobs of negativity” concerning FCPA enforcement, the US Justice Department responded with a resounding message – not only is FCPA enforcement here to stay, but individual violators are on DOJ’s radar screen. In an FCPA enforcement week like no other, the Justice Department unveiled a total of seven charging documents (indictments or informations) for FCPA violations, five arising from the Rolls Royce enforcement action and two from an upcoming enforcement action against SBM Offshore.

The Justice Department’s action sent an unmistakable message, whether it reflects the impact of the Yates memorandum or a continuing focus on individual prosecutions in the proper circumstances, FCPA enforcement has taken a new and dramatic turn to include individual criminal enforcement.

Two SBM Offshore Individuals: Mace and Zubiate

In the ongoing investigation involving Unaoil and SBM Offshore, two former executives, Anthony Mace and Robert Zubiate, plead guilty to FCPA conspiracy charges in federal court in Houston Texas.

SBM Offshore was the subject of an enforcement action in 2014 when US prosecutors deferred to Netherlands prosecutors who reached a $240 million settlement with SBM Offshore for foreign bribery violations. The Justice Department re-opened its investigation against SBM Offshore in early 2016 based on information it learned during the Unaoil investigation. Recently, SBM Offshore has disclosed that it has reserved $238 million in anticipation of a future settlement with the Justice Department.

Mace was the former CEO of SBM Offshore and a director of an SBM Offshore subsidiary. Zubiate was a former sales and marketing executive.

Mace admitted that, during the period from 2008 to 2011 while he served as the CEO, he authorized $16 million in payments pursuant to agreements in place prior to his assuming the position of CEO. The payments were made to foreign officials at Petrobas in Brazil, Sonangol in Angola, and GEPetrol in Equatorial Guinea. Interestingly, Mace conceded that he authorized the payments and “deliberately avoided learning” that the payment were bribes paid to foreign officials at these state-owned enterprises.

Mace authorized these illegal bribes to a total of fine individuals who he suspected were Equitorial Guinea officials or persons who received the payments at the direction of the foreign officials. In Brazil, Mace authorized payments to a Brazilian third-party intermediary’s accounts in Brazil and a shell company in Switzerland, ultimately owned by Petrobas officials.

Zubiate’s involvement in bribery stretched from 1996 to 2012, during which he and co-conspirators paid bribes to Petrobas foreign officials through a third-party sales agent in exchange for winning bids. The sales agent also was paid kickbacks for facilitating the bribe payments to Petrobas foreign officials.

It is not clear if Mace and Zubiate are cooperating in the ongoing investigation to investigate and prosecute other individuals and entities. They are scheduled to be sentenced in early 2018.

Five Rolls Royce Individuals: Petros Contoguris, James Finley, Aloysius Johannes Jozel Zuurhout, Andreas Kohler and Keith Barnett

As a follow-on to an enforcement action against Rolls Royce, the Justice Department unsealed FCPA criminal charges against two former Rolls Royce executives, a former Rolls Royce employee, a former third-party intermediary for Rolls Royce in Kazakhstan, and an executive for an international engineering consulting firm. Four of the individual entered guilty pleas during 2016, and one defendant has not been apprehended.

In January 2017, Rolls Royce entered into a global settlement with prosecutors in the UK, US and Brazil under which Rolls Royce paid a total of $800 million in fines and penalties, $169 million of which was paid to the United States.

The Justice Department’s criminal prosecution focused on one aspect of Rolls Royce’s conduct relating to the construction of a gas pipeline from Central Asia to China. The UK’s Serious Fraud Office has ongoing criminal investigations involving individuals involved in foreign bribery schemes in other countries.

Petros Contoguris, a Greek citizen, residing in Turkey was charged by indictment with conspiracy to violate the FCPA , money laundering conspiracy, 7 counts of FCPA violations and 10 counts of money laundering.

James Finley, a UK citizen residing in Taiwan, plead guilty to one count of FCPA conspiracy.

Aloysius Johannes Jozef Zuurhout, a Netherlands citizen, Andreas Kohler, an Austrian citizen and Keith Barnett, a US citizen, each plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA.

The five defendants conspired to pay bribes to foreign officials in exchange for securing business for Rolls Royce’s energy systems subsidiary, in relation to the construction of a gas pipeline. Contoguris and Kohler were engineering consultans and devised a scheme with the Rolls Royce executives and employee would pay bribes to at least one foreign official and disguise the payments through commission payments to Contoguris’s company.

Asia Gas Pipeline was a joint venture consisting of state-owned entities from China and Kazakhstan, which was created to build a gas pipeline between Kazakhstan and China. In November 2009, Rolls Royce was awarded a contract worth $145 million to supply gas turbines to the project, and Rollys Royce made commission payments to Contoguris’s company, who in turn passed the payments to a Technical Advisor company, knowing that the Advisor would in turn pay various foreign officials with bribes.

The three Rolls Royce former employees, Finley, Barnett and Zuurhout, admitted their participation in a conspiracy to violate the FCPA stretching back to 1999 and continuing to 2013, in which they would retain Technical Advisors who would transmit bribery payments to foreign officials in a number of countries to win contracts for the pipeline project. In a perverted twist, the Rolls Royce former employees conducted due diligence of potential technical advisors to ensure that they had close relationships with key foreign officials in order to facilitate bribery payments.

This article was republished with permission from Michael Volkov’s blog, Corruption, Crime & Compliance.


Tags: FCPA Enforcement Actions
Previous Post

Auditors: Your Roadmap Has Arrived

Next Post

TRACE: 20 Years of the OECD’s Anti-Corruption Campaign

Michael Volkov

Michael Volkov

Michael-Volkov-leclairryan Michael Volkov is the CEO of The Volkov Law Group LLC, where he provides compliance, internal investigation and white collar defense services.  He can be reached at mvolkov@volkovlaw.com. Michael has extensive experience representing clients on matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the UK Bribery Act, money laundering, Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), export controls, sanctions and International Traffic in Arms, False Claims Act, Congressional investigations, online gambling and regulatory enforcement issues. Michael served for more than 17 years as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia; for five years as the Chief Crime and Terrorism Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Chief Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Counsel for the Senate and House Judiciary Committees; and as a Trial Attorney in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Michael also maintains a well-known blog: Corruption Crime & Compliance, which is frequently cited by anti-corruption professionals and professionals in the compliance industry.

Related Posts

Stericycle FCPA Enforcement Action

Stericycle FCPA Enforcement Action

by Corporate Compliance Insights
June 23, 2022

Tom Fox dives into the details of Stericycle’s multinational bribery scheme in Latin America that landed the company millions of...

glencore building

As Details of $1B Glencore FCPA Settlement Show, Cooperation Pays

by Thomas Fox
June 15, 2022

The blockbuster settlement and plea agreement by Glencore tells the story of a multinational culture of corruption. Attorney and podcaster...

KT company building in Seoul

Compliance and Ethics Lessons Learned from KT Corps’ $6.3 Million FCPA Settlement

by Michael Volkov
March 23, 2022

The SEC's FCPA settlement with South Korean telecom KT Corporation was relatively light, thanks in part to the latter's cooperation....

Illustration of business man jumping for a suspended carrot

CCOs Say the Opaque Nature of DOJ Incentives Makes Self-Reporting a Hard Sell

by Evren Esen
February 8, 2022

Results of a recent Ethics and Compliance Initiative (ECI) survey indicate that a majority of CCOs can’t be sure whether...

Next Post
business bribery

TRACE: 20 Years of the OECD's Anti-Corruption Campaign

No Result
View All Result

Privacy Policy | AI Policy

Founded in 2010, CCI is the web’s premier global independent news source for compliance, ethics, risk and information security. 

Got a news tip? Get in touch. Want a weekly round-up in your inbox? Sign up for free. No subscription fees, no paywalls. 

Follow Us

Browse Topics:

  • CCI Press
  • Compliance
  • Compliance Podcasts
  • Cybersecurity
  • Data Privacy
  • eBooks Published by CCI
  • Ethics
  • FCPA
  • Featured
  • Financial Services
  • Fraud
  • Governance
  • GRC Vendor News
  • HR Compliance
  • Internal Audit
  • Leadership and Career
  • On Demand Webinars
  • Opinion
  • Research
  • Resource Library
  • Risk
  • Uncategorized
  • Videos
  • Webinars
  • Well-Being
  • Whitepapers

© 2025 Corporate Compliance Insights

Welcome to CCI. This site uses cookies. Please click OK to accept. Privacy Policy
Cookie settingsACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • About CCI
    • CCI Magazine
    • Writing for CCI
    • Career Connection
    • NEW: CCI Press – Book Publishing
    • Advertise With Us
  • Explore Topics
    • See All Articles
    • Compliance
    • Ethics
    • Risk
    • FCPA
    • Governance
    • Fraud
    • Internal Audit
    • HR Compliance
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data Privacy
    • Financial Services
    • Well-Being at Work
    • Leadership and Career
    • Opinion
  • Vendor News
  • Library
    • Download Whitepapers & Reports
    • Download eBooks
    • New: Living Your Best Compliance Life by Mary Shirley
    • New: Ethics and Compliance for Humans by Adam Balfour
    • 2021: Raise Your Game, Not Your Voice by Lentini-Walker & Tschida
    • CCI Press & Compliance Bookshelf
  • Podcasts
    • Great Women in Compliance
    • Unless: The Podcast (Hemma Lomax)
  • Research
  • Webinars
  • Events
  • Subscribe

© 2025 Corporate Compliance Insights