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Enforcement Action Dataset

 

Initiation Date:    10/12/2017  Information

Prosecuting Agency:    U.S. Department of Justice

Type of Action:    DOJ Criminal Proceeding

Docket or Case Number:    17-cr-00233

Court:    S.D. Ohio

Name of Prosecuting Attorneys:   

  • Sandra L. Moser, Acting Chief, Fraud Section, Criminal Division
  • Kevin R. Gingras, Trial Attorney, Fraud Section, Criminal Division
  • Vanessa Snyder, Trial Attorney, Fraud Section, Criminal Division
  • Benjamin C. Glassman, United States Attorney
  • J. Michael Marous, Assistant United States Attorney
  • Jessica H. Kim, Assistant United States Attorney

US Assisting Agencies:   

  • Federal Bureau of Investigation
  • U.S. Postal Inspection Service

Foreign Enforcement Action/Investigation:    Unknown

Foreign Assistance:   

  • German Law Enforcement Agency (DE)
  • U.K. Serious Fraud Office (GB)
  • Brazilian Law Enforcement Agency (BR)
  • Singaporean Law Enforcement Agency (SG)
  • Turkish Law Enforcement Agency (TR)
  • Dutch Law Enforcement Agency (NL)
  • Austrian Law Enforcement Agency (AT)

Origin of the Proceeding:    Unknown

Whistleblower:    Unknown

Case Status:    Ongoing


Summary  Information

Rolls-Royce plc was a U.K. publicly traded company with major business operations in the civil aerospace, defense, marine, and energy sectors worldwide.

Rolls-Royce Energy Systems, Inc. ("RRESI"), headquartered in Mount Vernon, Ohio, produced and supplied pipeline and barrel centrifugal compressors and power turbines and aftermarket services for oil and gas and power generation projects worldwide, including in Angola, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Russia, and Thailand.

Petros Contoguris was the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Gravitas & CIE International Ltd., a Turkey-based commercial agent and advisor for various oil and gas projects throughout the world.

Vitaly Leshkov was a Russian national and an employee of an unnamed international engineering and consulting firm in the firm's Almaty, Kazakhstan office.

Azat Martirossian was an Armenian national and an employee of the same engineering and consulting firm in the firm's Beijing, China office. Martirossian had previously been Armenia's ambassador to China.

According to the allegations in the indictment, from at least 2008 through 2012, Contoguris acted as the commercial agent for RRESI on a pipeline project in Kazakhstan. The indictment further alleges that Contoguris, Leshkov, Martirossian, and others conspired to pay bribes to a high-ranking Kazakh governmental official to retain the pipeline business for Rolls-Royce. According to the indictment, the Kazakh official worked at KazMunayGas, a Kazakh state-owned entity that had authority over Asia Gas Pipeline, LLC, a state-owned joint venture between the Kazakh and Chinese governments created to build and connect a gas pipeline between the two countries. It is further alleged that, in his capacity at the Kazakh entity, the Kazakh official could exert influence over the joint venture's purchasing decisions. The payments to the Kazakh official were allegedly made through intermediary entities including a U.K. based commercial advisor and a Monaco based oil and gas services company. It is also alleged that in November 2009, RRESI won a contract worth approximately $145 million to supply 11 gas turbine units to the joint venture for approximately $145 million. In all, the alleged co-conspirators paid the foreign official at least $1,947,023 in a series of payments.

On October 12, 2017, the DOJ filed a nineteen count indictment in the Southern District of Ohio against Contoguris alleging conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA and commit money laundering as well as direct violations of both the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA and the money laundering laws.

On May 24, 2018, the DOJ filed a nineteen count superseding indictment against Contoguris, Leshkov, and Martirossian alleging conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA and commit money laundering as well as direct violations of both the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA and the money laundering laws. Contoguris was charged on all nineteen counts. Leshkov and Martirossian were charged solely on the money laundering counts.

On August 16, 2018, Leshkov pled guilty to the one count of the superseding indictment he was charged with. The court sentened Leshkov on August 1, 2019, to 12 months in prison to be followed by 4 months of supervised release and ordered him to pay a fine of $500,000 plus a mandatory assessment of $100. The court further ordered that half of the fine be paid to the U.S. Postal Service.

This cases against Contoguris and Martirossian appear to be ongoing.

In related proceedings, the DOJ filed enforcement actions based on the same underlying facts against Contoguris' alleged co-conspirators Andreas Kohler, Aloysius Johannes Jozef Zuurhout, and James Finley earlier in 2017 and Keith Barnett in 2016. All four have pled guilty to the charges and are awaiting sentencing. In 2016, Rolls-Royce entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ. Under the terms of that agreement, Rolls-Royce accepted responsibility for a wide-ranging bribery scheme in several countries, including Kazakhstan, and agreed to pay a fine of $169.9 million.

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