Swiss court to rule on landmark Trafigura corruption case

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Swiss court to rule on landmark Trafigura corruption case

By Emma Farge

BELLINZONA, Switzerland (Reuters) – Swiss judges will issue a verdict on Friday in a corruption trial involving commodities trader Trafigura and three other defendants who allegedly paid bribes to an Angolan oil official in exchange for oil deals.

The case is the first time in Switzerland that a company has been charged at its highest court with corrupting a foreign official and a very rare instance globally of a former top executive of a trading firm landing in the dock.

Prosecutors alleged that Trafigura and others paid bribes of more than $5 million via a network of intermediaries to the Angolan official to win oil deals from 2009-2011.

They are seeking a total of over $156 million in penalties and compensation from Trafigura and a four-year jail sentence for former Chief Operating Officer Mike Wainwright.

Trafigura, which sent its current board member Pierre Lorinet to field prosecutors’ questions during the December trial, has said the anti-bribery and anti-corruption controls and the compliance programme in place at the time at its parent company met legal requirements and good practice standards.

Wainwright has rejected all the allegations against him and his lawyers say he is confident the case will be dismissed. Lawyers for the two other defendants, whom Reuters did not name due to restrictions under Swiss privacy rules, deny the charges.

During the trial in the southern city of Bellinzona, the court was shown dozens of pages of documents, memos, emails and messages as supporting evidence.

Some involve an ex-Trafigura employee who the indictment says was nicknamed “Mr. Non-Compliant” by late Trafigura founder Claude Dauphin because he did things forbidden at the group. Dauphin’s family says he has been singled out unfairly.

Any sentence can be appealed to the court, which would place on hold any prison sentence pending the outcome.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; editing by David Evans)

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