By Jane Croft
A businessman who admitted receiving bribes of £2.88m while running Bahrain’s aluminium champion has been jailed for 16 months for what the judge called an “extremely serious case of corruption.”
Bruce Hall, former chief executive of Bahraini-owned Alba, one of the largest aluminium smelters in the world, had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to corrupt. The charge related to an alleged multimillion pound bribery conspiracy involving Canadian-British billionaire Victor Dahdaleh and Bahraini minister Sheikh Isa bin Ali al-Khalifa.
Mr Hall made a deal with Britain’s Serious Fraud Office and last year appeared as a prosecution witness in the trial of Mr Dahdaleh, which collapsed because of the non-appearance of two key witnesses.
The SFO’s case against Mr Dahdaleh had centred on accusations that he paid £38m of bribes to Sheikh Isa in exchange for $3bn of contracts for businesses which Mr Dahdaleh represented, including Alcoa, a US aluminium company. Mr Dahdaleh was acquitted by the jury in what was seen as a major embarrassment for the SFO.
Sentencing Mr Hall, Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith said the case was so serious because of the amount of money involved and the eight-year period over which the conspiracy had taken place.
Mr Hall had allowed himself to “succumb to temptation” and in receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds had “become an enthusiastic beneficiary” of the conspiracy, the judge said.
Judge Loraine-Smith ordered Mr Hall to pay £500,000 to Alba in compensation, plus a further £3m in confiscation.
On Monday, Southwark Crown Court was told that Mr Hall, as chief executive of Alba, allowed himself to become loyal to Sheikh Isa – who was chairman of Alba at the time – and had accepted money from him.
Mr Hall received a total of 20 payments as part of the corrupt agreement, Philip Shears QC, prosecuting for the SFO, told the court earlier in the week.
Mr Hall’s French bank account was credited with €33,764 from an account with the Royal Bank of Canada in the name of ULECO, which Mr Hall assumed was an account controlled by Mr Dahdaleh, the court heard. Mr Shears told the court that this was the first of 16 payments which Mr Hall was to receive from this account.
At his trial Mr Dahdaleh admitted paying £38m to Sheikh Isa but his lawyers had argued that the payments were not corrupt because they were known about and approved by Alba’s board. Sheikh Isa vehemently denies any wrongdoing.
In mitigation Mark Ellison QC, acting for Mr Hall, told the court on Monday that the Bahraini business environment was an “alien environment” as he had previously only worked for western companies and was just a “passenger” in the conspiracy, which predated his arrival at Alba.
Judge Loraine-Smith said in sentencing that he gave Mr Hall some credit for his guilty plea and co-operation with the SFO. He also said the 119 days which Mr Hall had served in custody in Australia after he was arrested should be deducted from his jail term.
The sentencing is a rare victory for the SFO, which suffered severe embarrassment when the Dahdaleh prosecution collapsed. It has also been hit by a series of highly publicised missteps, including being sued for £300m by the Tchenguiz brothers over its botched investigation as part of a probe into the collapse of Kaupthing, the Icelandic bank.
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