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.
Andreas Kohler was an employee of an international engineering and consulting firm that was unnamed in the Information. Further research indicates that the company Kohler worked for was ILF Business Consult, which was a subsidiary or affiliate of ILF Consulting Engineers.
From around 2008 through 2012, Kohler and others conspired to pay bribes to a high-ranking Kazakh governmental official to retain business for Rolls-Royce. 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. In his capacity at the Kazakh entity, the Kazakh offcial could exert influence of the joint venture's purchasing decisions. The payments to the Kazakh official were made through intermediary entities including a U.K. based commercial advisor. 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 conspirators paid the foreign official at least $1,947,023 in a series of payments.
On June 6, 2017, the DOJ filed a single count Information in the Southern District of Ohio against Kohler alleging conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA. On the same date, Kohler entered into a plea agreement with the government. However, the plea agreement remains under seal, so the details of the agreement are not known. On July 29, 2019, the court sentenced Kohler to 4 months in prison to be followed by 4 months of supervised release and ordered him to pay a fine of $72,000 plus a mandatory assessment of $100. The court further ordered that half of the fine would be paid to the U.S. Postal Service.
