Ex-KBR official pleads guilty to bribery charge

Sept. 10, 2008
A former official of KBR Inc. pleaded guilty Sept. 3 to federal charges that he participated in a scheme to bribe Nigerian officials over a 10-year period, the US DOJ and the SEC jointly reported.

Nick Snow
Washington Editor

WASHINGTON, DC, Sept. 10 -- A former official of Kellogg Brown and Root Inc. pleaded guilty Sept. 3 to federal charges that he participated in a scheme to bribe Nigerian officials over a 10-year period, the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission jointly reported.

Albert "Jack" Stanley entered a guilty plea in US District Court in Houston to charges that he conspired to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and to commit mail and wire fraud while he was working for MW Kellogg Co., and later Kellogg Brown and Root during 1995-2004, DOJ said. Stanley agreed to cooperate with law enforcement authorities in ongoing investigations as part of the agreement, it added.

The report said KBR was one of four companies in a joint venture that was awarded four engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracts valued at more than $6 billion by Nigeria LNG Ltd. to build LNG facilities on Bonny Island. The government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. was the largest shareholder, with a 49% stake in the joint venture.

DOJ said Stanley was KBR's senior representative on the JV's steering committee, which made major decisions on NLNG's behalf, including hiring agents to assist the JV in obtaining business.

It said Stanley admitted authorizing the JV to hire two consulting companies to pay bribes to a range of Nigerian officials to assist the JV in obtaining the EPC contracts. Stanley also admitted that, at critical junctures before the contracts were awarded, he and others met with three successive former holders of a top-level office in the Nigerian government's executive branch to ask them to designate an official with whom the JV should negotiate bribes to Nigerian government officials, according to DOJ.

Paid over $282 million
In his guilty plea, Stanley said the JV paid about $132 million to the first consulting company and more than $50 million to the second with the idea that part of the money would be used to bribe Nigerian government officials.

DOJ said that in his guilty plea to the mail and wire fraud conspiracy charge to defraud KBR and others, Stanley said he received about $10.8 million in kickbacks from a consultant he induced the engineering and construction company to hire in connection with LNG projects around the world.

Under his plea agreement, which the federal district court accepted at a Sept. 3 hearing, Stanley faces a 7-year prison sentence and the payment of $10.8 million in restitution, DOJ said. A sentencing date has not been set, it indicated.

SEC said Stanley also settled charges by the securities regulator, without admitting or denying the allegations, when he consented to the entry of a final judgment permanently enjoining him from violating provisions in the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. He has agreed to cooperate with SEC's ongoing investigation, it said.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].