Four Convicted of Corruption in Operation Navigator

The U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office has convicted four men of conspiring to corruptly obtain payments by supplying confidential information about a series of high-value engineering projects in the oil and gas engineering industry. The projects totaled approximately US$110 million.

The projects included Styrene Monomer Project in Iran, QASR Gas Gathering Project in Egypt, Sakhalin Island Project in Russia, Singapore Parallel Train Project and Hydrogen Power Project in Abu Dhabi. The case, Operation Navigator, investigated actions taken by the accused from 2001 to 2009.

The confidential information supplied to bidders was held by companies acting as procurement agents for the projects. The court found that the defendants had access to inside information which they passed on to bidding companies who either made, or agreed to make, corrupt payments for the information. Disguised as consultancy services, the illicit payments were shared among the co-conspirators.

The companies that provided procurement services for these projects, including Snamprogetti, J. P. Kenny, Fluor, Foster Wheeler and Worley Parsons helped the investigation enormously, the office said.

The defendants will be sentenced on Jan. 30, 2012, at Southwark Crown Court. They are Andrew Rybak of Berkshire, Ronald Saunders of Hampshire, Philip Hammond of Brussels and Barry Smith of Hampshire. 

Photo shows Sakhalin II, Russia's first liquified natural gas project. Courtesy of Gazprom.