Bribery case nets four Ohio guilty pleas

Early this year, British company Rolls-Royce paid a settlement of more than $800 million in connection with a global bribery scheme that involved a former subsidiary in Mount Vernon, Ohio.

Now, two former RollsRoyce executives, a former Rolls-Royce employee and two others have been charged in Columbus as part of that scheme. It dates to 1999 and involves a $145 million contract to supply equipment and services to power a natural-gas pipeline in Asia. Four of the five people charged already have pleaded guilty.

“The charges unsealed ... reflect the determination and ability of the United States to investigate and prosecute individuals who engage in foreign corrupt business practices, regardless of how sophisticated or far-flung the scheme may be,” said U.S. Attorney Benjamin Glassman in a statement.

“We can and will follow the evidence wherever it leads — from Columbus to Kazakhstan and beyond.”

The scheme involves a former Rolls-Royce subsidiary, Energy Systems Inc. in Mount Vernon. Siemens, based in Germany, bought the facility in 2014.

Rolls-Royce had little to say about the new charges.

“Rolls-Royce has committed to full ongoing cooperation with the Department of Justice and cannot comment on action against individuals,” the company said in a statement.

Two former executives with Rolls-Royce — James Finley, 66, a citizen of the United Kingdom living in Taiwan, and Keith Barnett, 48, of Houston — have pleaded guilty in the case, which is being heard by U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr.

Finley has pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and of violating that law. Barnett has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate that law.

Aloysius Johannes Jozef Zuurhout, 53, of the Netherlands, a former energy-sales employee at Rolls-Royce, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, as has Andrea Kohler, 53, of Austria, who is identified only as a managing director of an international engineering and consulting firm working out of an office in Munich.

Also charged is Petros Contoguris, 70, a Greek citizen living in Turkey who is accused in 19 counts, including 10 of money laundering. Contoguris is the founder and CEO of Gravitas & CIE International, a Turkish-based adviser for oil and gas projects throughout the world. He is believed to be outside the U.S., according to the Justice Department.

According to the indictment, Contoguris, working with Kohler and other employees of the international engineering consulting firm, devised a scheme in which RollsRoyce paid kickbacks to the consulting firm and bribes to at least one foreign official, and disguised those payments as commissions to Gravitas. In exchange, Rolls-Royce received contracts with Asia Gas Pipeline.

Asia Gas is a joint venture between Kazakhstan and China created to build a pipeline between the two countries.

Asia Gas awarded Rolls-Royce a contract in November 2009 worth approximately $145 million. Rolls-Royce made commission payments to consulting-firm employees, knowing that they would share the money with a foreign official consistent with their agreement.

In pleading guilty, Finley, Barnett and Zuurhout acknowledged that they each participated in a conspiracy going back as far as 1999 and continuing into 2013. They admitted engaging advisers who would use their commission payments from Rolls-Royce to bribe foreign officials to help Rolls-Royce secure an improper advantage and obtain and retain business with foreign government.