The Department of Justice reports that a former senior oil and gas trader has been sentenced to 15 months in prison and fined $300,000 for his role in a nearly eight-year-long scheme to bribe foreign government officials and launder money in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, the man paid over $1 million in bribes to officials at a state-owned company in exchange for inside information, including competitor bids and confidential pricing information from other U.S. companies, that gave two companies he worked for a competitive advantage in winning lucrative contracts. To conceal this scheme the man and his co-conspirators used coded language to refer to the bribes and communicated using personal email accounts, encrypted messaging applications, disposable phones, and fictitious names.
Earlier this year the DOJ announced updated guidelines on FCPA enforcement that emphasized prosecutions of individuals, among other things.
Copyright © 2026 Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A.; WorldTrade Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved.