FCPA Scorecard Blog
SBM CEO and executive sentenced to prison for conspiracy to bribe foreign officials
On September 28, the DOJ announced that a former CEO and a former executive of oil services company SBM Offshore, N.V. (SBM) had been sentenced to prison and fined for their roles in a scheme to bribe foreign government officials in Brazil (at Petrobras), Angola (Sonangol), and Equatorial Guinea (GEPetrol) in exchange for oil-services contracts. In November 2017, the former CEO of SBM, Anthony “Tony” Mace, and a former sales and marketing executive at SBM USA, Robert Zubiate, each had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA. Mace was sentenced to 36 months in prison and a fine of $150,000 for authorizing payments in furtherance of the bribery scheme, and Zubiate was sentenced to 30 months in prison and a fine of $50,000 for using a third-party sales agent to pay bribes to Petrobras officials.
SBM itself entered into a $238 million three-year deferred prosecution agreement and its subsidiary, SBM USA, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA.
Prior Scorecard coverage of the company can be found here.