Petrofac boss is fined and banned by Italian regulators

THE boss of oil services company Petrofac has once again found himself at the centre of legal wrangling after Italian authorities imposed sanctions on him amid insider trading allegations.

Ayman Asfari, the long-time boss of Petrofac, has been fined €300,000 (£277,000) and banned from holding an administrative role in any listed Italian company for 12 months by the Italian National Commission for Companies and the Stock Exchange (Consob).

The charges against Mr Asfari relate to concerns that he was passed inside information by an Italian company which he used by trading the company’s securities.

Mr Asfari has refuted any wrongdoing and said the sanctions were imposed without him being given the opportunity to defend himself. He will look to appeal the decision.

“I was shocked to receive this notification, and I informed the company as soon as I was made aware,” he said. “I absolutely reject this decision which was made entirely in my absence, affording me no opportunity to defend myself.”

It is his second graze with regulators this year. Mr Asfari and Petrofac’s chief operating officer Marwan Chedid were arrested and questioned under caution by the Serious Fraud Office as part of the ongoing inquiry into a global corruption scandal in the oil services industry. Petrofac has been implicated with Monaco-based Unaoil, which has been accused of acting as a middleman to secure the group consultancy contracts worth $2bn in Kazakhstan between 2002 and 2009. Neither of the executives were charged but Petrofac suspended Mr Chedid while Mr Asfari was kept in place to focus on the dayto-day running of the group.

In its first trading update since the corruption allegations emerged, Petrofac delivered an unpleasant surprise for investors by revealing that its net debt soared from $671m (£525m) last year to $1.1bn at the end of June.

Rijnhard van Tets, Petrofac’s chairman, said: “The board fully supports Ayman in his defence against this decision, the steps he is taking to prove that in no way did he act improperly, and his leadership of the company.”

The company’s shares fell 4.1pc following the news to 422p, less than half its value in October last year when the Unaoil scandal first emerged.

Both Unaoil and Petrofac have denied wrongdoing.