Sargeant Marine Inc. was a large asphalt company incorporated and based in Boca Raton, Florida.
According to the documents in this case, between approximately 2010 and 2018, Sargeant Marine conspired to pay bribes to foreign officials in Brazil, Venezuela and Ecuador to secure lucrative contracts.
In Brazil, Sargeant Marine and its related companies bribed officials at the state-owned oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. - Petrobras, to obtain contracts to sell asphalt to Petrobras. Sargeant Marine concealed the bribe payments by creating fake consulting contracts and invoices and by using cash payments and by wiring millions of dollars from the United States to offshore bank accounts held in the name of shell companies of bribe middlemen.
Sargeant Marine engaged in similar conduct in Venezuela, this time to purchase asphalt from the state-controlled oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA). Sargeant Marine and its affiliates—which had been blacklisted by PDVSA—used a Swiss company that would resell the asphalt to Sargeant Marine at a small premium. As it did in Brazil, Sargeant Marine concealed the bribes by creating fake consulting contracts and fake invoices and by making payments to offshore bank accounts held by a bribe middleman. The bribe payments also gave it access to non-public information from PDVSA officials to give Sargeant Marine an edge on its competition.
Sargeant Marine paid bribes to an official working for Empresa Publica de Hidrocarburos del Ecuador (Petroecuador), the state-owned oil company of Ecuador that needed asphalt to supply the country. Sargeant Marine again used the same tactics as in Brazil and Venezuela to conceal bribe payments that were made through an intermediary to a Petroecuador official. The bribery payments were intended to secure a contract with Petroecuador.
As a result of these bribes, Sargeant Marine and its affiliated companies earned profits of over $38 million.
On September 22, 2020, the DOJ filed a single count Information in the Eastern District of New York against Sargeant Marine alleging conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA. On the same date, the DOJ announced that the company had pled guilty to the charges and agreed to pay sanctions of $16.6 million. Under the terms of the plea agreement, Sargeant Marine further agreed to self report to the DOJ on the status of the company's enhanced anticorruption compliance policies and procedures for a term of three years. The DOJ noted the company's cooperation and remediation, but no credit was awarded for voluntarily disclosing the misconduct. Based on that cooperation and remediation, the DOJ determined that Sargeant Marine's fine should represent a 25% departure off the bottom of the sentencing guidelines range. Accordingly, the appropriate fine should have been $90 million. However, the DOJ further reduced the fine based on the company's inability to pay.
On the same date, the DOJ also unsealed previously filed cases against individuals connected to this bribery scheme. The implicated individuals included Sargeant Marine's part owner, Daniel Sargeant, and several agents of the company and at least two of the foreign officials.
