Businessman Pleads Guilty to Foreign Bribery Charges in Connection with Venezuela's State-Owned Oil Company

DOJ

On June 16, the DOJ announced that the owner of several U.S.-based energy companies had pleaded guilty to bribery charges related to a scheme to corruptly secure energy contracts from Venezuela’s state-owned oil company. This stems from the previously reported December 2015 charges against the energy companies’ owner and the owner of an oil-field supply company.

According to admissions made by the energy companies’ owner, he worked with the oil-field supply company’s owner to submit bids for equipment and services to Venezuela’s state-owned oil company. Beginning in 2009, the two individuals agreed to pay bribes to purchasing analysts of the state-owned oil company to ensure that their companies were placed on the state-owned oil company’s bidding panels, which enabled the companies to secure lucrative energy contracts. The energy companies’ owner also admitted to making bribe payments to other officials of the state-owned oil company to ensure that his companies were placed on vendor lists approved by the state-owned oil company and given payment priority over other vendors with outstanding invoices. Previous FCPA Scorecard coverage on these investigations can be found here.