British firm fined for corruption, breaching Iraq sanctions

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LONDON, Sept 26 (AFP): A British company was fined 3.5 million pounds yesterday after pleading guilty to overseas corruption and paying money to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime in violation of the "oil for food" programme.
Mabey and Johnson, who make steel bridges, became the first company to be convicted in Britain of corruption overseas, after admitting two charges of corruption and one of breaching sanctions in August.
The company admitted paying 365,000 pounds (400,000 euros, 580,000 dollars, 400,000 euros) to the Iraqi regime in 2001 and 2002, in violation of United Nations sanctions under the oil-for- food programme.
Mabey and Johnson-owned by one of the wealthiest families in Britain-also admitted using bribes to win public contracts in Ghana and Jamaica between 1993 and 2001.
A court ordered the firm to pay a total of 6.61 million pounds, which included a 3.5-million-pound fine, compensation to the countries affected, legal costs and paying for an independent body to oversee its future conduct.
A lawyer for Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO), John Hardy, told Southwark Crown Court in south London that Mabey and Johnson had paid more than 1.1 million pounds in bribes in Iraq, Ghana and Jamaica, as well as Angola, Madagascar, Mozambique and Bangladesh.
Five of its directors have stepped down since 2008, and it was Mabey and Johnson who voluntarily disclosed the corruption offences to the SFO.
British courts have had jurisdiction over crimes of bribery committed overseas by British nationals and UK-registered companies since February 2002.
The oil-for-food programme, which ran from 1996 until 2003, allowed Iraq to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods which the country lacked because of tight UN sanctions imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.