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Energy firm's U.S. affiliate agrees to pay $135 million to settle FCPA violations with CFTC and DOJ

Financial Crimes FCPA DOJ CFTC Bribery Of Interest to Non-US Persons

Financial Crimes

On December 3, the DOJ announced it had entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. affiliate of one of the largest energy trading firms in the world, in which the company agreed to pay a combined $135 million in criminal penalties related to two counts of conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA. The agreement also resolves a parallel investigation in Brazil. According to the DOJ, between 2005 and 2014, the company paid millions of dollars in bribes to public officials in Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico “‘to obtain improper competitive advantages that resulted in significant illicit profits for the company.’” Specifically, the company and its co-conspirators paid more than $8 million in bribes to at least four officials at Brazil’s state-owned and controlled oil company, Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. – Petrobras (Petrobras), “in exchange for receiving confidential Petrobras pricing and competitor information.” The company concealed the bribery scheme “through the use of intermediaries and a fictitious company that facilitated the payments to offshore accounts and, ultimately, to the Petrobras officials.” In another instance, the company bribed at least five additional Petrobras officials in order to receive confidential pricing information used to win fuel oil contracts, whereby “a consultant acting on behalf of [the company] engaged in back-channel negotiations with a Houston-based Petrobras official,” and “ultimately settl[ed] on the pre-arranged price that allowed for bribes to be paid from [the company] to the Petrobras officials.”

Between 2015 and July 2020, the company also engaged in a second bribery conspiracy by offering and paying government officials in Ecuador and Mexico more than $2 million in exchange for business opportunities connected to the purchase and sale of oil products. The company and its co-conspirators—who knew the funds, at least in part, were going towards the bribes—“entered into sham consulting agreements, set up shell companies, created fake invoices for purported consulting services and used alias email accounts to transfer funds to offshore companies involved in the conspiracy.”

DOJ is crediting $45 million of the total criminal penalty against the amount the company will pay to resolve the Brazilian Ministério Público Federal’s investigation into conduct related to the company’s bribery scheme in Brazil. The company and another entity within its group of energy trading firms have also agreed to continue to cooperate with the DOJ in ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions, and will make enhancements to their compliance programs and report on their implementation for a three-year period.

In a related matter, the company also agreed to disgorge more than $12.7 million and pay an $83 million civil money penalty related to manipulative and deceptive trading activity not covered by the DOJ’s deferred prosecution agreement. Under the order, the civil money penalty will be recognized and offset up to $67 million by the amount paid to the DOJ as part of the deferred prosecution agreement. The CFTC noted that the company’s “fraudulent and manipulative conduct—including conduct relating to foreign corruption—defrauded its counterparties, harmed other market participants, and undermined the integrity of the U.S. and global physical and derivatives oil markets.” This case is the first foreign corruption action brought by the CFTC.