AFP goes after corporate execs for conspiracy to offer foreign bribes - turns blind eye to local corrupt payments
Wednesday, 01 August 2018
Apparently it takes criticism from global bodies like the OECD or World Bank to stir Australian authorities into action.
The Thiess corrupt payments into the Gillard/Wilson/Blewitt slush fund are there in plain sight - but our authorities apparently don't care. Well I do and I know you do.
Here's The Australian today.
Federal police claim SKM execs conspired to bribe foreign officials
Federal police have accused a group of former senior executives at engineering consultancy Sinclair Knight Merz, now known as Jacobs Group, of conspiring to bribe officials in The Philippines and Vietnam to secure nine infrastructure projects, court documents reveal.
In documents filed in a Sydney court detailing foreign bribery charges against the Australian arm of Jacobs and its former chief executive, Paul Dougas, police claim former SKM executives Mark Read, who is now the chairman of mining services peak body Austmine, Geoff Linke, Lyndsay Chapple and Paul Casamento were among people who conspired to bribe foreign officials.
However, they have not charged Mr Read, Mr Chapple, Mr Linke or Mr Casamento with any crime. The Australian is not suggesting these men have engaged in any wrongdoing.
The Australian can today also reveal details of a previously unreported foreign bribery charge against Jacobs over four infrastructure projects in Vietnam, which a World Bank tribunal has separately found involved paying off officials using “ghost” contracts.
It can also be revealed that Mr Dougas, who denies the charge, yesterday resigned from the board of clean coal body the Global CCS Institute, where he was chairman.
The charges against him and SKM, which had a portfolio of work that took in the Wembley Stadium redesign and the Gold Coast’s desalination plant, relate to alleged bribery as far back as 2000 — well before a 2013 deal in which US-headquartered global engineering services giant Jacobs paid $1.3 billion to buy the consulting group from its employees.
In May, police served Mr Dougas with one charge of conspiracy to offer a bribe to a foreign public official, relating to the Philippines projects, and Jacobs Group (Australia) with two counts of the same offence over both The Philippines and Vietnam.
The charges were laid after a four-year AFP investigation that followed heavy criticism by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development of Australia’s poor track record in prosecuting foreign corruption offences.
Mr Dougas has hired top corporate lawyer Leon Zwier, a partner at Melbourne firm Arnold Bloch Leibler, to represent him.