The company is accused of bribing officials in Congo and Iraq and violating trade sanctions for Iran, Syria, and Cuba, reports Bloomberg. Weatherford will plead guilty in a deferred-prosecution agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which accused the company of authorizing bribes and misusing funds from 2002 to 2011.
According to Bloomberg, Weatherford made a US $59 million profit from its illicit transactions, which involved parties in the US, Canada, Africa, and the Middle East.
In Africa, some Weatherford employees won contracts by bribing foreign officials and leaking information concerning pricing. In Iraq, other employees received kickbacks for oil drilling and refining equipment contracts that they concealed from the United Nations.
Weatherford is also accused of bribing foreign officials by paying for two to attend the 2006 FIFA World Cup and for paying for the honeymoon of another official’s daughter, reports the Washington Post. More than half of Weatherford’s fines are bribe-related.
Weatherford will also pay about $US 100 million for its transactions with countries under sanctions. Andrew Ceresney, co-director of the SEC’s enforcement division, was quoted in the Washington Post as saying that Weatherford deliberately covered up these deals.
“They used code names like ‘Dubai across the water’ to conceal references to Iran in internal correspondence, placed key transaction documents in mislabeled binders and created whatever bogus accounting and inventory records were necessary to hide illegal transactions,” Ceresney said.
According to the Washington Post, Tuesday’s settlement is the result of years of investigations and must still be approved by a judge. Weatherford International Chairman Bernard Duroc-Danner said, “This matter is now behind us…We move forward fully committed to a sustainable culture of compliance.”
