BELLINZONA, Switzerland (Reuters) – Switzerland’s top criminal court on Friday found Trafigura and a former executive guilty of corruption in a case involving payments made to an Angolan official in exchange for oil contracts.
It ordered the trading house to pay over $148 million in fines and compensation and sentenced its former staff member Mike Wainwright to 32 months in prison of which 12 must be served. The outcome can be appealed to the same court.
The case is the first time in Switzerland that a company has been charged at its highest court with corrupting a foreign official and a very rare instance globally of a former top executive of a trading firm landing in the dock.
Prosecutors alleged that Trafigura and others paid bribes of more than $5 million via a network of intermediaries to the Angolan official to win oil deals from 2009-2011.
Trafigura has previously said the anti-bribery and anti-corruption controls and the compliance programme in place at the time at its parent company met legal requirements and good practice standards. Wainwright has previously rejected all the allegations against him.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; editing by Matthias Williams)
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