This was published 7 years ago
Rolls-Royce fined $1.1b after Fairfax Unaoil expose
By Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker
British engineering giant Rolls-Royce has paid $1.1 billion to settle corruption probes in the UK and US and admitted to using oil industry fixer Unaoil to pay huge bribes in several countries.
Statements released overnight by the US Department of Justice and the UK Serious Fraud Office reveal that information uncovered by Fairfax Media's 2016 expose of the Unaoil bribery scandal has been used to make serious corruption findings against Rolls-Royce.
Rolls-Royce is one of several major multinationals that used Unaoil to win contracts in oil and gas producing nations via a system that involved Unaoil bribing government officials responsible for awarding the contracts.
The settlement highlights the relative weakness of Australia's anti-bribery system in which federal police investigators have amassed significant information about Australian firm Leighton Holdings' corrupt use of Unaoil to win huge deals in Iraq, but have struggled to charge the company or any individual.
Unaoil's Saman, Cyrus and Ata Ahsani.
The US and UK fines were agreed to by Rolls-Royce as part of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement, a controversial arrangement in which a company admits corruption but does not face court. Individuals involved in the corrupt deals may still be charged.
The federal government is considering introducing a DPA scheme in Australia in light of the inability of police and prosecutors to take action against several companies suspected of paying bribes, including Leighton Holdings (now known as CIMIC), Tenix, Tabcorp and Getax.
In announcing the Rolls-Royce fines, the US Department of Justice said Unaoil "regularly bribed officials and others to secure work for Rolls-Royce".
Department of Justice documents lodged in a US court describe Unaoil as "intermediary 1". Fairfax Media has confirmed that intermediary 1 is Unaoil, the Monaco company owned by the wealthy Ahsani family.
In a statement of facts, US officials found that Rolls-Royce paid Unaoil millions of dollars in commissions to win work in Iraq, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Angola between 2000 and 2013.
Unaoil then used some of the Rolls-Royce payments to bribe government officials in those countries to secure lucrative contracts for its high-profile British client.
The DoJ found that multi-million dollar commission payments were funnelled to officials in Iraq's South Oil Company and to officials in the other countries where Unaoil was hired by Rolls-Royce.
Rolls-Royce also reached a settlement with Brazilian police, admitting it paid almost $9 million in bribes to officials from a state-owned petroleum company between 2005 and 2008.
In other deals that did not involve Unaoil, Rolls-Royce admitted to being involved in corruption in China, Thailand and Nigeria as far back as 1989.
Investigations into Unaoil and its other multi-national clients are continuing in the US, UK and Australia.
The Ahsani family has taken action in the British High Court to try to stop the Serious Fraud Office's investigation of Unaoil's allegedly corrupt activities.
The company has also hired lawyers and a public relations firm to argue that it has been the victim of an extortion attempt by embittered former employees who stole a cache of sensitive documents and correspondence.