The highest court in Switzerland convicted the giant traffigger traffig and one of his senior bribes of bribery for paying the company she made to get access to the Angola Oil Oil Market.
In a significant case, the court handed over former Mike Wainwright operating director, who also competed as a racing driver – a 32 -month prison sentence and fined the $ 148 million (£ 119 million) company.
This is the first time that the entire company has accused the highest court in Switzerland, and the conviction of bribing higher staff are rare.
Traffigu lawyers said the company and Wainwright intend to appeal the verdict, so that the former executive director was not immediately closed.
The case against Trafigura had all the elements of the financial thriller: millions of dollars, shady mediators and chain of shells of shells located in offshore grooves like the Virgin Islands.
The traffigo strategy was heard by the court, set up a complex web web, through which an official with Angola’s state oil was paid almost $ 5 million (4.02 million £; EUR 4.81) between 2009 and 2011.
The documents presented to the court presented by the Swiss prosecutors that the payments were approved on the traphicurin’s head note.
The strategy seems to have function: over the next few years, the court listened, Angola signed contracts with Trahfigur worth almost $ 144 million (£ 115.93; 138.56 €).
Traffigu, whose lawyers appeared before the verdict, denied the bribe. The company announced that their own compliance and anti -corruption measures were independent and found to be excellent.
But the pure weight of the evidence – which included a dozen documents, e -Mail and memorandum – revealed a different image: strict measures against corruption on paper, but an intricate structure set to avoid these measures in reality. In the heart of that was a mediator called “MR who did not consist” in the anonymous Geneva office.
The case will send the cold via the commodity intermediaries around the world, but especially in Geneva, where the headquarters are Trafigur and many other goods trading houses.
In a creepy coincidence, the night before the verdict rendered, the fire broke out at a five -star hotel des Bergues – where, by court documents, an Angol official remained at the expense of Trafigur in 2008.
Swiss federal prosecutors hope that the case will be a symbol that the old ways of doing business have finally been completed.
They have been charged with the highest court in Switzerland, reserved for the worst crimes, such as terrorist offenses.
Trafigure is now facing a great fines, and Wainwright, who was in court for a judgment and rejected the charges, was told that he had to withstand for at least a year of his 32 -month sentence in prison.
However, he was not immediately detained, waiting for the appeal he intended to file.
