* Petrofac and former executive had pleaded guilty
* Second guilty plea secured by Serious Fraud Office in 6
months
* Penalty smaller than feared, but firm will still refinance
(Adds SFO and with judge's comments)
By Shadia Nasralla and Kirstin Ridley
Oct 4 (Reuters) - British oil services company Petrofac
was fined 77 million pounds ($105 million) on Monday and
a former executive received a two-year suspended sentence after
both pleaded guilty to bribery in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates.
The penalty from Southwark Crown Court in London is less
than the $240 million the company had said it might face for
failing to prevent bribery between 2011 and 2017.
Its shares jumped by as much as 17% after the announcement
to their highest since June 2020.
Petrofac's former head of sales David Lufkin, who pleaded
guilty to 14 counts of bribing agents with more than $80 million
to influence around $7.5 billion of contracts, was given a
two-year suspended sentence.
Lufkin's lawyer was not immediately available for comment.
Petrofac had admitted that senior executives paid 32 million
pounds in bribes related to the awarding of contracts worth
around 2.6 billion pounds, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said.
"Senior executives within the Petrofac Group engaged in
elaborate schemes to corrupt the awarding of contracts, using
agents to systematically bribe officials to win lucrative
contracts by unfair and dishonest means," the SFO said.
"A key feature of the case was the complex and deliberately
opaque methods used by these senior executives to pay agents
across borders, disguising payments through sub-contractors,
creating fake contracts for fictitious services."
Judge Deborah Taylor said that corruption was systemic,
serious and grave and that Petrofac's controls were wholly
inadequate, but she said she did not consider it necessary to
put the company out of business.
Petrofac intends to proceed with a refinancing flagged ahead
of the sentence, which could include raising debt or equity.
With the four-year investigation by Britain's SFO hanging
over its past contracts, Petrofac has struggled to secure
contracts in the Middle East and has seen its shares battered.
"All employees involved in the charges have left the
business. This concludes the Serious Fraud Office's
investigation into the company. In determining the penalty, the
Court and the Serious Fraud Office acknowledged Petrofac's
corporate reform," the company said.
The case marked the second corporate guilty plea secured by
the SFO in about five months.
Former Airbus subsidiary GPT Special Project
Management pleaded guilty to corruption over military contracts
for Saudi Arabia in April.
($1 = 0.7363 pounds)
(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla; additional reporting by Yadarisa
Shabong and Kirstin Ridley; editing by Anil D'Silva, Mark Potter
and Barbara Lewis)
Petrofac (PFC)
