Petrofac Ltd.

The SFO is investigating the activities of Petrofac Ltd, its subsidiaries, and their officers, employees and agents for suspected bribery, corruption and money laundering.

On Friday 24 September 2021, following requisition by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), Petrofac Limited attended Westminster Magistrates’ Court where the company was charged with seven separate offences of failing to prevent bribery between 2011 and 2017.

Having been heard at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, the case was sent to the Crown Court, in line with the legal procedure for SFO cases into serious and complex financial crime.

Following a plea agreement with the SFO, Petrofac Limited pleaded guilty to each offence on Friday, 1 October. On Monday, 4 October, Petrofac Limited was ordered to pay confiscation of GBP 22,836,985, a fine of over GBP 47,197,640, and the SFO’s costs of GBP 7 million.

Petrofac Limited admitted that it failed to prevent former senior executives of the Petrofac Group from paying GBP 32 million (USD 44 million) in bribes, to help the Petrofac Group win over GBP 2.6 billion (USD 3.5 billion) of contracts in the oil and gas industry in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The Court heard how, over a period of six years, 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.

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 and, in some cases, passing bribes through more than one agent and one country, to disguise their actions.

Also on Monday, 4 October 2021, David Lufkin, a British national and previously Global Head of Sales for Petrofac International Limited, was sentenced to a two-year custodial sentence, which was suspended for 18 months.

David Lufkin pleaded guilty guilty to 11 counts of bribery on 6 February 2019 and 3 further counts of bribery on 14 January 2021. The charges relate to payments or offers of over USD $181 million in bribes to win contracts worth a total of over USD $7.8 billion in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

In addition to pleading guilty, David Lufkin co-operated with SFO investigators and assisted with the investigation.

Petrofac Limited’s conviction and sentencing brings to a conclusion the investigation into suspected bribery and corruption as far as the corporate entity (and its subsidiaries) is concerned.  The investigation into the conduct of individual suspects continues.