- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Adrianne Appel2024-08-26T15:47:00
A former trader at the U.S. affiliate of energy giant Vitol pleaded guilty to bribing officials at Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) in an effort to secure contracts.
The guilty plea of Javier Aguilar is just one outcome of the long-running criminal investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) into bribery-related corruption at Vitol concerning energy sales to Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico between 2017 and 2020, the agency said in a press release Thursday.
Vitol, the largest energy trading company in the world, admitted in December 2020 that its employees bribed officials in Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico. It entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, including the payment of $135 million in penalties and implementing a corporate compliance program to detect criminal misconduct.
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The Commodities Futures Trading Commission fined TOTSA TotalEnergies Trading $48 million for allegedly engaging in price manipulation, with Commissioner Carolyn Pham defending a compliance officer at the Swiss energy company accused of making false statements.
The value the Department of Justice places on cooperation can be measured by studying penalties and agreements resulting from the agency’s long-running investigation into bribery and corruption by oil traders operating in Latin America and Africa.
The CFTC’s recent fine ladled onto a DOJ investigation into foreign corrupt practices by Swiss energy trader Vitol S.A. should force companies with any exposure in the commodities market to reexamine their risk profiles, experts say.
Raymond James & Associates and its subsidiary agreed to pay more than $1.9 million to settle allegations levied by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority that it didn’t have an effective system to handle customer complaints, along with millions of direct mutual fund transactions not reasonably being supervised.
A subsidiary of Bank of America agreed to pay $3 million and take remedial measures to resolve allegations that its surveillance system didn’t detect manipulative trading, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said.
The Department of Justice declined to prosecute Boston Consulting Group for allegedly bribing Angolan officials in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, citing the firm’s prompt self-disclosure and timely remediation.
