Oud nieuws:
2 sept
Floater giant SBM Offshore has taken a further step to resuming normal operations in Brazil after reaching a leniency agreement with the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (MPF), which has resulted in a fine of almost $50 million.
The new agreement, revealed this weekend, comes after the company in late July reached a leniency agreement with the comptroller general (CGU) division of Brazil’s Ministry of Transparency, the Attorney General’s office (AGU) and state oil giant Petrobras.
SBM said the deal with the MPF is a final settlement over “alleged improper sales practices” before 2012.
The agreement, like other such agreements signed with the MPF, is still subject to approval by the Fifth Chamber of the MPF, which in 2016 knocked back one such leniency agreement.
However, SBM is confident that this deal will be pushed through, as issues with the previous unapproved agreement “have been addressed”.
“As such, it is anticipated that approval from the Fifth Chamber should be forthcoming,” SBM said.
Under the new deal, SBM is to pay an additional fine of 200 million reais (around $48 million) on top of fines already levied against the company. The fine will be paid to Petrobras, with 60 million reais upfront, followed by seven instalments of 20 million reais.
This has pushed the total provision from SBM for the legacy bribery issues in Brazil from $299 million to $347 million.
“ Under the agreement, the MPF commits to refrain from initiating new legal proceedings against the company under the Improbity Law, Anti-Corruption Law and Public-Procurement Law in relation to the legacy issues in Brazil,” SBM said.
“The MPF and the company will jointly request the court to formally close the Improbity Lawsuit filed by the MPF in 2017, including the associated provisional measure to secure payment of potential damages.
“Once approved the case will be closed and the agreement will become fully effective.”
Chief governance and compliance officer Board Erik Lagendijk, said: "We are pleased that following the recent agreement with Petrobras and Brazilian authorities we now also have reached an agreement that removes the uncertainties around the remaining litigation risk over our historical legacy issues in Brazil."
Since 2015, SBM has been trying to settle its liabilities with the Brazilian authorities and the contractor has been excluded from signing contracts with Petrobras since 2014.
In that year, SBM struck a similar leniency agreement with the Dutch public prosecutor's office, promising to strengthen compliance procedures and prevent a repeat of the sales practices that came to light with an internal whistle-blowing scandal and Brazil's Car Wash corruption probe.
A settlement was also reached with the US Department of Justice in 2017.