Topic: Bribery and corruption

Brazil’s state-run oil and gas company Petrobras has urged a US court not to enforce a US$622 million award arising from a contract allegedly procured through bribery of public officials – but the Cayman entity that won the award says no “redo” of the arbitration is allowed.

08 October 2018

A Dutch court has refused to throw out a class action brought on behalf of investors in Petrobras who suffered losses as a result of the “Lava Jato” corruption scandal – holding that an arbitration clause in the Brazilian company’s articles of association does not preclude the lawsuit.

25 September 2018

South Korea has been hit with a previously threatened claim by a US private equity fund over its interference in a US$8 billion Samsung merger – including allegations that the group’s controlling family, the Lee family, bribed the now imprisoned former president Park Geun-hye to enable the merger to go ahead at an undervalue.

14 September 2018

Two Cypriot companies have filed an ICSID claim against Romania over their investments in a major commercial and residential development project in Bucharest that became the focus of an investigation by the country's anti-corruption unit, as a Romanian businessman associated with the project fights extradition proceedings in the UK.

24 August 2018

The US Department of Justice has alleged that unnamed law firms representing Venezuela in international arbitrations arranged to pay “kickbacks” to the relative of a Venezuelan government official.

01 August 2018

A Stockholm Chamber of Commerce tribunal has rejected claims that a Ukrainian gas joint-venture agreement was procured through collusion or corruption, while ruling it must be terminated because changed circumstances including a royalty hike on gas sales have made it unworkable.

16 July 2018

A Cayman offshore drilling company has asked a US court to enforce a US$622 million ICDR award against Petrobras over the early termination of a contract that the Brazilian state-owned company alleges was procured through bribery.

03 July 2018

A Florida court has confirmed an ICDR award that rescinded an Australian company’s purchase of an Ecuadorean engineering consultancy in light of evidence that the sellers had engaged in a “far-reaching and intricate bribery scheme” to procure government contracts.

29 May 2018

A Singapore court has upheld a US$149 million ICC award in a dispute over a power plant in Guatemala – rejecting arguments that the tribunal unfairly restricted one side’s access to evidence and failed in a duty to investigate corruption allegations.

27 April 2018

UPDATED. Embattled construction group Saipem has reached a deal with Algerian state oil and gas company Sonatrach to settle four ICC arbitrations worth billions of euros over projects that Italian prosecutors allege were procured through bribery.

28 March 2018