Petrofac has reached a plea agreement with the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and will plead guilty to seven bribery offences in relation to payments made for contracts across the Middle East.
The SFO charged Petrofac with seven offences of failing to prevent bribery, as former employees who offered or made payments in relation to projects awarded between 2012 and 2015 in Iraq, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. These offers or payments were made between 2011 and 2017.
“This was a deeply regrettable period of Petrofac’s history,” said chairman René Medori. “We are committed to ensuring it will never happen again. We have fundamentally overhauled our compliance regime, as well as the people, and the culture that supports it. Our comprehensive programme of corporate renewal has been acknowledged by the SFO. Petrofac has been living under the shadow of the past, but today it is a profoundly different business, in which stakeholders can be assured of our commitment to the highest standards of business ethics, wherever we operate.”
A sentencing hearing is scheduled to take place at Southwark Crown Court commencing on Monday 27 September 2021.
This was a deeply regrettable period of Petrofac’s history. We are committed to ensuring it will never happen again.
René Medori, Petrofac chairman
The penalty will be determined at the sole discretion of the Court. It may take into account submissions by the Company as to its ability to pay, along with the SFO’s recognition that Petrofac is a changed company with transformed leadership, personnel, compliance and assurance processes.
Petrofac was banned in March 2021 by ADNOC Group from pursuing new contracts in the nation after Petrofac’s former global head of sales David Lufkin pleaded guilty to three counts of bribery in January 2021 for contracts worth $3.3 billion in the UAE between 2012 and 2018. This was a considerable setback for the company, and it is unclear how the guilty pleas could impact its relations with other nations in the region.
“With my new management team we are rebuilding the company into a new Petrofac that’s relevant for the future, across both traditional and new energies, built on a foundation of the highest ethical standards,” said group chief executive Sami Iskander.
Petrofac wrote in a statement to press that it has a well-developed, comprehensive compliance and governance regime, supported by a dedicated compliance and investigations team, new systems and technologies, mandatory training and a company culture based on ethical business conduct and transparency.
