Former Leighton chief financial officer Peter Gregg faces four-year jail term following guilty verdict

Former Leighton executive Peter Gregg faces up to four years in jail after a jury found him guilty of falsifying records.

Former Leighton chief financial officer Peter Gregg. Picture: AAP

Former Leighton chief financial officer Peter Gregg faces up to four years in jail after being found guilty of accounting offences over a $15 million payment the company made to a Dubai consultant that remains at the centre of a long-running corruption investigation into the contracting group.

A Sydney jury on Tuesday found Mr Gregg, a former corporate high-flyer who has also been an executive at Qantas and was chief executive at Primary Health Care until charges were laid against him in February 2017, guilty of two counts of falsifying books and records — an offence that carries a maximum jail term of two years or a fine of just $21,000.

Fellow former Leighton executive Russell Waugh, who worked for the company’s oil and gas business in the Middle East, was found not guilty of aiding Gregg in committing the offences.

Sydney District Court judge Paul Lakatos released Gregg on bail ahead of his sentencing.

The two men were charged early last year following an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which along with Federal Police and international agencies has been looking into allegations of foreign bribery by Leighton or its agents between 2009 and 2011.

While the ASIC investigation is over, an AFP spokeswoman said it still continued its inquiry, which started in late 2011 or early 2012 after Leighton referred itself to police over bribery allegations relating to the construction in Iraq of a wharf to be used to transport oil.

A spokeswoman for Leighton, which changed its name to CIMIC in 2015 in an attempt to distance itself from the corruption allegations, declined to comment.

Prosecutors said Gregg falsified Leighton’s books between August and December 2011 in relation to two payments totalling $15m made to a company called Asian Global Projects and Trading FZE, in breach of section 1307(1) of the Corporations Act.

Mr Waugh was accused of aiding and abetting him in the offence.

Gregg in 2016 sued the former Fairfax Media, now part of Nine, for defamation in the plaintiff-friendly Federal Court after the media outlet accused him of making the payments.

In February last year Justice Steven Rares put the defamation case on ice until the criminal case was resolved.

A mention to decide Gregg’s sentencing date has been set for January 31.

The Gregg verdict represents a victory for ASIC, which along with other agencies was criticised over Australia’s lackadaisical attitude towards prosecuting foreign corruption offences in a scathing 2012 report issued by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Criticism from the OECD prompted the AFP to re-open several bribery probes, and the organisation gave Australia a better mark in a follow-up report last year, but police investigations into the complex crime remain slow, with 19 foreign corruption cases still open as of last year.

Gregg is a senior business figure with a long corporate career that, in addition to his executive roles, includes stints as a non-executive director of companies including Queensland Rail, Skilled Engineering and Ausenco.

However, speaking on radio 2GB last night, ASIC commissioner John Price said the regulator did not care whether the perpetrators of corrupt corporate conduct were senior or junior executives.

“If you engage in criminal corporate conduct we’ve got the powers and more importantly we’ve got the willingness to pursue you,” Mr Price said.

Meanwhile, the AFP’s investigation into Leighton, Operation Trig, is set to enter its seventh year without any charges being laid.

The investigation has been made more complicated by the fresh allegations, published by Fairfax Media in 2016, that Leighton paid bribes through Monaco-based company Unaoil, which is now at the centre of a global corruption investigation.

Unaoil has denied the allegations.

An AFP spokeswoman said Leighton’s 2011 referral dealt with “possible bribe payments having been made during two contracts undertaken by an operating entity called Leighton Offshore in Iraq in 2010 and 2011”.

“Shortly after that the AFP commenced an investigation of the allegations under the name of Operation Trig,” she said.

She said the AFP was working closely with law enforcement agencies in the UK and US.

“As the Operation Trig investigation is still ongoing it would be inappropriate to comment any further,” she said.