Marubeni was a general trading company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
In 1991, a joint venture was formed for the purpose of bidding on and, if successful, designing and building a liquefied natural gas plant and several expansions on Bonny Island, Nigeria (the "Bonny Island Project"). The joint venture was comprised of four companies - Technip of France, Snamprogetti Netherlands B.V. of the Netherlands, Kellogg Brown & Root of the United States, and JGC Corporation of Japan. Between 1995 and 2004, members of the joint venture devised and implemented a scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain contracts worth over $6 billion related to the Bonny Island Project. The joint venture partners formed a "cultural committee" comprised of senior sales executives at each company to consider how to carry out the bribery scheme. To conceal the illicit payments, the joint venture entered into sham contracts with a shell company controlled by a U.K. solicitor (Jeffrey Tesler, who was given $132 million for the purpose of bribing high-level Nigerian officials) and a Japanese trading company (Marubeni Corporation, which was given $51 million for the purpose of bribing low-level Nigerian officials) as conduits for the bribes. Total payments to the two agents exceeded $180 million.
On January 17, 2012, the DOJ filed a criminal information against Marubeni in the Southern District of Texas, charging Marubeni with one count of conspiracy and one count of aiding and abetting violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. At the same time, the DOJ entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with Marubeni. Under the DPA, Marubeni agreed to pay a monetary penalty in the amount of $54.6 million, and to retain an independent compliance consultant for a period of two years.
In a related criminal case, KBR’s successor company, Kellogg Brown & Root LLC, pleaded guilty in February 2009 to FCPA-related charges for its participation in the scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials. Kellogg Brown & Root LLC was ordered to pay a $402 million fine and to retain an independent compliance monitor for a three-year period to review the design and implementation of its compliance program. In another related criminal case, the department filed a deferred prosecution agreement and criminal information against Technip in June 2010. According to that agreement, Technip agreed to pay a $240 million criminal penalty and to retain an independent compliance monitor for two years. In July 2010, the department filed a deferred prosecution agreement and criminal information against Snamprogetti, which also agreed to pay a $240 million criminal penalty. In April 2011, the department filed a deferred prosecution agreement and criminal information against JGC, in which JGC agreed to pay a $218.8 million criminal penalty and to retain an independent compliance consultant for two years.
