“Saipem Bribery Case”: Sonatrach Loses 200 Million Euros!

The national hydrocarbons Company, Sonatrach, has officially lost the legal battle to retrieve the funds of the proven international corruption scandal in the “Saipem-Sonatrach case” because of a delay in lodging a relevant complaint with the International Arbitration Chamber based in the French capital Paris.

As a matter, it was proven that the Italian engineering company Saipem paid bribes to obtain seven oil and gas contracts with Sonatrach in Algeria.

Therefore, Sonatrach had initiated legal proceedings at the International Chamber of Arbitration in Paris to recover the graft fees paid for these markets.

But in vain, as Sonatrach was informed by the chamber that the application is inadmissible because it was not filed on time, thus incurring a loss of € 200 million Euros, that is more than 2,300 billion centimes (DA) for the national energy company.

Moreover, this represents a financial compensation sought by Sonatrach for the moral damage it suffered notably the tarnishing of its reputation and its name internationally.

To recall, only the dispute with Sonatrach is focused in the Saipem financial report in 2015 on all arbitration cases settled amicably, over 25, with other companies worldwide, 20 of which haven’t yet been decided.

Projects that are involved in the arbitration are those of construction of facilities of the Menzel Ledjmet East field (MLE), the achievement of the LDHP plant of Hassi Messaoud as well as LZ2 pipeline linking Hassi R’Mel to  Arzew LNG and the Z3 Arzew LNG project.

Sonatrach had introduced, according to the financial statement of Saipem, a request to recover its funds as of September 14, 2015 at the International Court of Arbitration in Paris for hefty graft dividends grabbed by fugitive Farid Bedjaoui in exchange for securing lucrative oil and gas contracts in Algeria.

It should be noted that a Milan court recently ordered the seizure of assets worth 250 million euros ($268 mln) from three defendants caught up in an Algeria corruption case involving Italian oil services company Saipem, a court document showed. 

A seizure order issued by a Milan judge on Oct. 9, said the assets seized included six buildings in Manhattan belonging to Algerian businessman Farid Bedjaoui, including three prime properties on Fifth Avenue. In October, Saipem and five people were ordered to stand trial on charges the oil services group had paid bribes to win contracts in Algeria.

Prosecutors allege that Saipem paid intermediaries almost 198 million euros to bag contracts worth 8 billion euros with Algeria’s energy company Sonatrach. The seizure issued by the Milan judge covered the value of the bribes of 198 million euros plus 50 million euros in non-paid taxes on that sum, the document showed. Besides Bedjaoui, the other defendants named in the order are former Saipem manager Pietro Varone and Samir Ouraied, a fiduciary of Bedjaoui.

A lawyer for Varone said assets belonging to her client had already been seized, adding however the order had been appealed. Ouraied’s Italian lawyer told the press no asset seizure had been carried out, while it was not possible to get a comment from Bedjaoui’s lawyer.