Angola bribes land suspended UK sentences
Three former senior employees of Hamburg-based logistics company F.H. Bertling group were sentenced by a UK court on 17 October following an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (‘SFO’) into corrupt payments made to the State oil company, Sonangol ‘in relation to F.H Bertling’s freight forwarding business in Angola and a contract worth approximately $20 million.’
Earlier, on 27 September, the SFO had announced that F.H. Bertling Ltd ‘and six current and former employees’ had been convicted of conspiracy to make corrupt payments to an agent of the Angolan state oil company – and that one defendant was acquitted.
The SFO says that Joerg Blumberg, Dirk Juergensen and Marc Schweiger were sentenced, fined and disqualified as company directors ‘following their convictions for conspiracy to make corrupt payments earlier this year.’
It said that Schweiger, a German national living in Uganda, was the manager responsible for the Africa market when the corrupt activity took place between January 2004 and December 2006, and that Blumberg worked as group CFO, while Juergensen was the managing director of the UK subsidiary F.H. Bertling Ltd. Both are German nationals living in Germany.
Blumberg, Juergensen and Schwieger were each given a 20-month sentence, suspended for two years, a £20,000 fine, payable within three months with a default sentence of one year for non-payment, and were disqualified from being company directors for five years.
The SFO explained that the company and former employees were convicted of conspiracy to make corrupt payments, contrary to section (1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977 and section (1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906.
Following the conviction, SFO Director David Green CB QC said: ‘F.H. Bertling sought to obtain contracts through bribery. Corrupt practice by British companies such as this undermines the UK’s reputation as a safe place to do business and distorts the market, not to mention the damage it causes in the countries where the bribes are paid.’
