Energy infrastructure engineering and construction giant John Wood Group (Wood) said Tuesday its subsidiary WGPSN had reached a civil settlement with Scotland's Civil Recovery Unit "in relation to the historical engagement of Unaoil by a legacy joint venture and potential unlawful conduct."
Unaoil is a Monaco-based company that has been engulfed in what has been described as one of the world's largest bribery scandals. According to an investigative report by The AGE, titled: "UNAOIL: THE COMPANY THAT BRIBED THE WORLD," the company has for years "systematically corrupted the global oil industry, distributing many millions of dollars worth of bribes on behalf of corporate behemoths" in return for government contracts in oil-rich nations.
Wood said Tuesday that the civil settlement with Scotland's Civil Recovery Unit related to conduct in Kazakhstan in the period between 2008 and 2010.
"A joint venture in the legacy PSN business, which was acquired by Wood in 2011, paid Unaoil a total of 1,358 million Kazakhstan Tenge (then approximately US$8.74m) in fees," Wood said.
Payments were on a commission basis and continued until 2015 although there is limited evidence of what services Unaoil provided for these fees, the company added.
Self-reported
"The settlement concludes the issue which started after Wood self-reported having conducted a thorough internal investigation, before cooperating fully with COPFS and the Civil Recovery Unit throughout their investigation. Under the terms of the settlement, Wood has agreed to pay a total of £6.46 million (c.$9 million) to COPFS," Wood said.
Robin Watson, Chief Executive of Wood, said: "The investigation shone a light on behaviour that was quite simply unacceptable. While we didn't own the business until 2011, we take responsibility for dealing with the consequences and have taken steps to further strengthen our culture and processes to ensure it does not happen again. We continue to insist on the highest standards of integrity in every country and community in which we operate."
Roy Franklin, Chairman of Wood, said: "Having self-reported on the issue, we conducted a thorough investigation into the matter. I am confident that the historic engagement in one part of the PSN business does not reflect the values of Wood, past or present, or our people. The settlement underlines why we attach such importance to upholding the highest standards of ethics and compliance, and we continue to strengthen our governance in this area."
Settlements with UK SFO, U.S., Brazil pending
The settlement announcement came on the same day after Wood had said that the discussions concerning the resolution of investigations by the UK Serious Fraud Office, authorities in the US, Brazil & Scotland were "at an advanced stage," and that it might need to pay $197 million to settle all the investigations.
"Discussions concerning the possible resolution of the investigation by the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and by the authorities in the US, Brazil and Scotland have progressed to the point where the Group now believes that it is likely to be able to settle all of the relevant matters at an aggregate cost of $197m," Wood said earlier on Tuesday. The amount includes the amount of $46m provided for in 2019.
Wood expects that, apart from the Scottish settlement announced today, the settlement of the other investigations will be finalized, subject to court approvals, during Q2 2021.
"It is expected that approximately $70m of the settlement amounts will be payable in 2021, with the balance payable in installments in 2022, 2023, and 2024," Wood said.
To remind, in another oil industry bribery-related case, oilfield services Petrofac said Monday that the UAE-based oil giant ADNOC had Petrofac from competing for new ADNOC contracts "until further notice," over a bribery case related to contracts awarded in 2013 and 2014.
As for other recent Unaoil linked cases, a former sales manager of Dutch FPSO firm SBM Offshore was sentenced earlier this month to three-and-a-half years in prison after being convicted by a London jury of bribing public officials to win oil contracts in Iraq.
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