An ex-employee of Gunvor Group is standing trial accused of bribing officials to secure financing and delivery of crude cargoes in Africa.
Bloomberg reported that Swiss prosecutors allege the former trade finance executive at the Swiss commodities giant was involved in a scheme to make payments worth $35.5m in the Republic of the Congo.
The hearing at the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona begins on Monday.
The former trader can only be referred to as “G” under Swiss reporting restrictions.
The trial follows a guilty verdict in a case involving another former Gunvor oil trader, referred to as “C”, who was given an 18-month suspended jail term in 2018 over payments for cargoes in the Republic of the Congo and Ivory Coast.
A year later, Gunvor paid $95m to end a Swiss probe into the group’s involvement.
Swiss prosecutors said evidence emerged during these cases that led to the current proceedings.
G’s lawyer has not commented.
Gunvor told TradeWinds it had no comment as it is not a party to the trial.
The indictment refers to email exchanges between C and G that allegedly demonstrate G knew he was generating false receipts for the payments.
Email chain
Prosecutors allege more than 35 payments of up to $3.5m going to middlemen through banks in Switzerland and Belgium.
One email allegedly shows G writing to C in 2011, saying: “Try to use different wordings in these bills please.”
He also wrote: “It becomes a bit ‘obvious’ and bank compliance could come down on us.”
Earlier this year, Gunvor pleaded guilty to corruption and agreed to pay $661m to settle an investigation into the bribery of officials at Ecuador’s state-owned oil company Petroecuador.
The company was behind a complex bribery scheme for nearly a decade in return for securing deals that ultimately benefited Gunvor, said the US justice department.
Gunvor admitted conspiring to violate US bribery laws in a plea deal.
It agreed to pay a fine of $375m and forfeit $287m it made from the bribery schemes.
Gunvor paid more than $97m to intermediaries between 2012 and 2020, knowing that some of the money would be used to bribe company officials, TradeWinds reported.
