A United Kingdom governmental department recently identified a corrupt case of Petrofac Abu Dhabi dealings, where a former executive of the firm was involved. The UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) confirmed that the British national pleaded guilty to three counts of bribery, which included payments to the United Arab Emirates. It is another example of the deep-rooted corruption in the operations of the Gulf nation, which lacks regulations in the matter.
Based in Jersey, Petrofac Ltd. is a British provider of energy services to the industry. Its Former Global Head of Sales, David Lufkin pleaded guilty to three counts of bribery concerning corrupt offers and payments of around $3.3 billion to the UAE. Between 2012 and 2018, these bribery attempts between Petrofac and Abu Dhabi were to win contracts.
The Petrofac SFO investigation revealed that Lufkin made these offers and payments to influence the awarding of the Emirati contracts to the firm. In his guilty plea at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, the former executive accepted his role in making payments and raising offers to multiple agents in the UAE.
It was revealed that one of the Petrofac Abu Dhabi proposals was made to manipulate the decisions of Emiratis regarding the award of an engineering, procurement and construction deal in UAE’s one the major offshore field development projects, the Upper Zakum UZ7 50. The project was awarded to the British firm in 2013.
Even in 2014, the bribery efforts of Petrofac were successful in impacting the Emirati decisions, where a variant of the UZ7 50 contract and a front-end design contract for the Bab Integrated Facilities Project was awarded to the company. According to the Petrofac SFO investigation, Abu Dhabi contracts and bribery payments together amounted to around $30 million.
The SFO, while investigating into several Jersey-based firms and subsidiaries, also disclosed that David Lufkin pleaded guilty to 11 other bribery charges in February 2019, which were regarding offers to influence contract awards in Saudi Arabia worth over $3.5 billion, and in Iraq worth over $730 million.
While the Petrofac Abu Dhabi dealing have been proved corrupt by the SFO investigation, the company said that its “management is committed to operating at the highest standards of ethical business practice”. However, the case was committed for sentence on February 11, 2021.
David Lufkin’s guilty plea and the Petrofac SFO investigation has not just revealed the bribery attempts of the British firm, but have also hinted at the weak operational system of the UAE. While the corrupt proposals were made by the British national, the Emiratis have been quite active in accepting and being influenced by these attempts.
