The highest court in Switzerland has sentenced the Trafigura trading giant and one of its senior bribery leaders for payments made by the company to gain access to Angola's income oil market.
In a remarkable case, the court handed over to the British former operating officer of the company Mike Wainwith – who also competes as a racing driver – a 32 -month sentence from prison and fines the company $ 148 million (119 million pounds).
This is the first time the whole company has been accused by the highest court in Switzerland, and the sentences for bribery of senior staff are rare.
Traffickers at the traffic said the company and Wainwith intend to appeal the sentence, so the former executive director was not closed immediately.
The case against traffic has all the elements of financial thriller: millions of dollars, shady intermediaries and a chain of shell companies located in offshore shelters like the Virgin Islands.
Trafigura's strategy, hearing the court, was to create a complex payment network through which an Angola state -owned oil company was paid nearly $ 5 million (£ 4.02 million; £ 4.81) between 2009 and 2011.
The documents presented to the court by Swiss prosecutors showed payments authorized for the Trafigura's own notebook.
It seems that the strategy is working: over the next few years, the court heard, Angola signed contracts with traffic worth nearly $ 144 million (£ 115.93; 138.56 euros).
The traffic, whose lawyers looked bulls before the sentence, denied a bribe. The company said its own measures for compliance and anti -corruption were independently evaluated and established as excellent.
But the pure weight of the evidence – including dozens of documents, emails and notes – revealed a different picture: strict measures to combat paper corruption, but a complex structure designed to avoid these measures. At its core was a mediator named “Mr. Incompatible” at an anonymous Geneva office.
The case will send cold through commodity brokers around the world, but especially in Geneva, where there are headquarters in traffic and many other commercial houses.
On the ominous coincidence, the night before the sentence, a fire broke out at the five -star Des Bergues Hotel – where, the court documents show, an Angolan official stayed at the expense of the traffic in 2008.
Swiss federal prosecutors hope that the case will be a symbol that the old ways to do a business are finally over.
They have been charged with the highest court in Switzerland, reserved for the most serious crimes, such as terrorist crimes.
The traffic is now facing a major fine and Wainraith, who was in court for the sentence and denied the charges, and it was said that he should endure at least one year from his 32 -month sentence in prison.
However, he was not detained immediately, in anticipation of the complaint he intended to file.