Episode 163 -- Review of Recent FCPA Cases Involving Petroecuador

In two recent FCPA enforcement actions, the Justice Department focused on bribery schemes involving Petroecuador government officials.  Petroecuador is the state-owned oil and gas company in Ecuador.

In the first, DOJ announced an indictment against Javier Aguilar, an oil trader at Vitol, an energy and commodity trading company, for his role in a five-year international bribery and money laundering scheme carried out in Ecuador.

In the second enforcement action, DOJ announced a guilty plea to FCPA charges by Sargeant Marine, Inc., a privately-owned company, based in Boca Raton, Florida. Sargeant Marine, an asphalt company, plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA and agreed to pay a fine of $16.6 million for bribery schemes in Brazil, Venezuela and Ecuador.

In this Episode, Michael Volkov discusses these two enforcement actions.