Current Affairs | 13.11.2003
Managers Sentenced to Jail in Elf Corruption Trial
In France's biggest corporate crime trial, a judge on Wednesday sentenced two former Elf Aquitaine executives to five years in prison for using company money as bribes. A German lobbyist will spend 15 months behind bars.
Loik Le Floch-Prigent, Elf Aquitaine's former chief executive, was sentenced to five years in prison on Wednesday. Alfred Sirven, the oil giant's former general affairs manager, received the same sentence.
Apart from Le Floch-Prigent and Sirven, 35 other defendants stood trial, including German lobbyist Dieter Holzer for his role in Elf Aquitaine's acquisition of an oil refinery in Leuna in eastern Germany.
Holzer will have to spend 15 months behind bars and pay back about €24 million ($27.8 million) in "consultant fees" he received for helping Elf to close the Leuna deal. Alfred Tarallo, the company's "Mr. Africa," was sentenced to four years in prison.
France's biggest corporate scandal
The Elf scandal ballooned into one of the most extensive legal proceedings in France's history. Investigators spent eight years researching for the trial, generating more than 45,000 pages of documents.
The court found that the defendants stole a total of €300 million ($346.8 million) from Elf Aquitaine, still a state-owned enterprise at the time, to use as bribes to secure Elf business contracts in Africa, South America, Russia, Spain and Germany between 1989 and 1993. Sirven, Le Floch-Prigent's right hand, allegedly funneled about €168 million ($194 million) through his Swiss bank accounts.