February 14, 2012
Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie
The Sydney Morning Herald
SEVERAL large Australian public companies have provided federal police with information implicating themselves in possible foreign bribery offences.
The Age understands companies involved in mining, exploration and other sectors in Africa and Asia have discovered possible evidence of overseas bribery during recent internal audits.
The audits were prompted by the corruption scandal involving the Reserve Bank of Australia that led to its subsidiaries, Securency and Note Printing Australia, as well as 10 former executives, being charged with the nation's first foreign bribery offences in July last year.
Construction firm Leighton Holdings yesterday became the first big Australian company to publicly admit it had alerted the AFP to a possible breach of anti-bribery laws.
The alleged breach involves its Singapore-based subsidiary Leighton Offshore Pvt and payments made to facilitate a wharf construction project in Iraq.
The Iraq payments are not the only potential corruption case facing the construction giant. Documents from a NSW Supreme Court case last year reveal Leighton conducted an internal inquiry into ''apparently corrupt conduct'' involving allegations that a senior employee channelled half a million dollars worth of steel to a third-party project at the Bantam Shipyard in Indonesia.
Court records show that Leighton has also investigated whether any of its employees have knowledge of ''commissions or secret payments'' made in connection to suspected corrupt dealings connected to the same project.
A federal police spokeswoman yesterday declined to comment on which Australian companies had raised bribery issues with it. She was unable to say how many foreign bribery cases were being investigated due to ''operational reasons''.
''However, the AFP can confirm an increased awareness among Australian companies and industry of their obligations as a result of recent foreign bribery matters,'' the spokeswoman said.
Documents released by the federal Attorney-General's Department to The Age under Freedom of Information laws show that in May last year Australia had four active foreign bribery investigations.
A senior executive in a leading accounting firm told The Age this week his company had been contacted by dozens of Australian firms in the wake of the RBA scandal amid concerns that their conduct abroad may have put them in breach of bribery laws.
Another Australian due diligence and risk management firm told The Age it has advised three companies to contact the police about potential bribery.
The Age yesterday asked several large Australian companies with operations in corruption-prone countries if they had contacted federal police about possible bribery offences. The Age is not suggesting any of these companies have acted corruptly.
A BHP Billiton spokeswoman said: ''We are not able to comment at this time.''
The US Securities Exchange Commission is investigating BHP Billiton for possible violation of anti-bribery laws.
The company has been under scrutiny after it was revealed it paid $1 million to the Cambodian government to secure a mining project in 2006. A senior Cambodian minister later described the payment, which has been unable to be traced, as ''tea money''.
BHP Billiton has since banned facilitation payments in order to meet the requirements of Britain's tough new anti-bribery laws.
Rio Tinto yesterday had ''no comment'' in response to questions from The Age about whether it had contacted police about foreign bribery issues.
Attorney-General's Department documents show officials in the financial crime section were last year taking a keen interest in allegations Oz Minerals had been involved in bribery in Cambodia.
The Cambodia Daily newspaper last year alleged relatives of government officials had received hundreds of thousands of dollars after the Australian firm bought out its local partner in a gold mining venture.
Oz Minerals and the Cambodian government denied any impropriety. A company spokeswoman said in July last year that an internal investigation could find no evidence of wrongdoing.
The Age is aware of another Australian mining company under investigation by law enforcement agencies that is believed to have paid a senior African political figure to obtain a business advantage.
In the case of the RBA firms, Securency and NPA, police allege a network of middlemen were used to funnel multimillion-dollar bribes to officials in Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Nepal.
The Age understands other prominent Australian public companies have worked closely with Securency's Vietnam agent, Anh Ngoc Luong, who last year was named in a Melbourne court as a co-conspirator who helped Securency allegedly facilitate up to $17 million in bribes to Vietnamese officials.
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