Tenaris pays 78 million SEC for bribes in Brazil – Corriere.it

Italian justice works on Italian bribes abroad but in the end it is still dry, American justice stands idly by but in the end collects them. Lots of money 78 million dollars. And, ironically, thanks to the Italian court papers that just ended in nothing in Milan with a payment of 6 million in 2009-2013. Unique Judiciary Theater revolves around the US Consop, the Securities and Exchange Commission, to which Tenaris, a key hinge of the Italian-Argentine multinational tech of the Roca family, pays a $78 million fine to settle a US investigation into the same corruption in the Brazil subject of the Milan trial, which It concluded on January 25 that the Gianvilis brothers were acquitted due to the lack of Italian jurisdiction and Paulo Rocato his cousin Roberto Bonati and San Faustin, the Luxembourg holding company of the group.

pipes in brazil

The explanation for the paradox lies in the different assumptions of the two procedures and in the diversity of the two legal systems. In Italy, the Milan Public Prosecutor launched a criminal investigation in 2016 against the legal person of San Faustin (under investigation under Law 231 on corporate administrative responsibility for offenses committed by top management in the interest of the company) and natural persons of Rocca, accused with permission or taking a 0.5% bribe on In any case in order to award Confab (a company controlled by San Faustin through Tenaris) 22 contracts for the supply of pipes worth 1.4 billion euros: 6.5 million made by Prime Minister Donata Costa (now under the supervision of the European Anti-fraud Office) and Isidoro Palma (who passed in the Naples Court of Appeal) to paraphrase documents paid to them in Brazil in 2009-2013 by Uruguayan Hector Alberto Zabaleta, then local director of Techint, director (Renato Duque) of Carioca Petrobras, with money received from the accounts of profit-fueled Uruguayan companies. made by San Faustin, i.e. from the Treasury l Ussemburg of the Roca family owes a personal fortune of $6 billion. The defense argued that there were no documents or testimonies that could link Zabaleta’s payments to the leaders of San Faustin and Techint, and argued that it was unrealistic that Rocca from the surface of their command could have been aware of the potential amount of bribes for 6,6 million in Big Sea’s $90 billion volume. Sales of 450 companies consolidated at San Faustin Holdings during the investigation period in 45 countries with 70,000 workers. But the charge on May 25 was dropped even earlier, under the court’s statutory admissionwhich ruled that there was no place to proceed given that no part of the accused criminal conduct of the accused was committed in Italy or from Italian territory, and that everything instead took place between Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Switzerland and Luxembourg, where the group represents the presence of a center of manufacture own decision and tax domicile.

The dollar is everywhere

So what does the United States have to do with it? Any thing. Except that, if a foreign company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, anywhere in the world, makes a dollar amount whose purpose is not clear, the United States considers the FCPA to be in violation and begins a proceeding that it then administers. With their grotesque (and often controversial) hyper-pragmatic negotiating approach, which almost always leads to an agreement that closes the investigation in the face of a maximum impulse. Also because companies often rush to hire a law firm (in the case of Tenaris, Sullivan, and Cromwell) to do a self-report, that is, a report on all internal flaws, to be spent on the transaction board. Years ago, it happened to Saipem (formerly Snamprogetti Netherlands), in the Milan trial over the LNG of Bonny Island in Nigeria, which gave the United States abroad the opportunity to obtain 240 million for the Department of Justice and 125 million. to sec.

Insufficient controls

Now it is up to Tenaris, not to dispute the SEC’s direct responsibility to accused Roca in Milan, but indeed to the fact that Confap (controlled by Tenaris, which in turn is controlled by San Faustin) had paid an improper amount with money coming in between ‘the other’ From a dollar account: For many years, despite known corruption risks, Tenaris did not implement adequate internal accounting controls during its business operations, and this failure created the environment in which bribes were facilitated by a constellation of companies linked to the majority of its shareholders. And when the maximum fine was monetised, the US Department of Justice magically informed Tenaris that it had closed its parallel investigation without taking any action.