SBM Offshore Agrees to Pay DOJ $238 Million; Two Former Executives Charged by UK SFO

DOJ SBM Offshore N.V. UK Serious Fraud Office

On November 29, Dutch oilfield company SBM Offshore entered into a three year deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ to settle allegations that SBM paid bribes to secure contracts in various countries around the world. Under the agreement, SBM agreed to pay a total of $238 million, including a $500,000 criminal fine and forfeiture of $13.2 million. The next day, the UK Serious Fraud Office announced that two former SBM executives had been charged with conspiracy to make corrupt payments in connection with government contracts in Iraq between 2005 and 2011. 

Earlier this month, two different former SBM executives pleaded guilty in US federal court to paying bribes to government officials in Brazil, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea. Click here for FCPA Scorecard’s prior coverage of these guilty pleas. SBM has been involved in a sprawling bribery investigation involving enforcement officials in the United States, the UK, Brazil and the Netherlands. The DOJ closed its investigation in 2014 before reopening it in February of 2016. Click here to view previous FCPA Scorecard coverage of the SBM investigation.

The company’s deferred prosecution agreement states that SBM did not receive voluntary disclosure credit even though it voluntarily disclosed the conduct to the DOJ, because the disclosure was untimely as it took place “approximately one year” after the company learned of the information. It also states that SBM received full cooperation credit because it conducted a “thorough internal investigation, [made] regular factual presentations” to the DOJ, “voluntarily [made] foreign-based employees available for interviews in the United States, [produced] documents to the United States from foreign countries” and expedited parts of the internal investigation. The deferred prosecution agreement goes on to detail the remedial measures that SBM has taken to improve its compliance function, which included hiring a third party to design and implement a new compliance program, reduce the number of third party agents engaged by the company, and terminate relationships with questionable third parties. It goes on to explain that all of these factors weighed in the DOJ’s decision not to seek a guilty plea by the company. This information provides insight into the DOJ’s expectations for receiving disclosure and compliance credit.