Worse case scenario26 Jan 2021 21:53
Evening all,
My first post on this board- so be gentle.
I thought I would add some balance to the possible worse case scenario of an SFO Prosecution, I am not a lawyer but have looked at recent UK Bribery Act convictions - see attached based on a Freedom of Information Act.
https://www.sfo.gov.uk/foi-request/2020-040-bribery-act-2010/
There are very few convictions and most of them entered into deferred prosecution agreements, in English -we will pay a fine we won't prosecute you. In this case they are former employees, no current BOD involved, and in a notoriously corrupt jurisdiction. What we don't know is if its a contractor or a direct employee which will make a difference. It states the individuals have not been charged since 2013/2014 offences. That tells me this will be a long investigation which if PFC dispute could go on for years.
What seems to be normal is a deferred prosecution agreement which ranged from a 2-3m to the big Airbus one which squews the figures.
In my view PFC could easily argue that they were not aware, we are sorry, we will tighten up our processes, they no longer work for us blah, blah blah and enter a deferred agreement which would be based around the value of the contract, which could be very little.
This is the risk the shorters take ? fundamentals aside what impact would a 3m fine have? obviously negative publicity, maybe a few contracts missed but in my view all dusted off with a sorry.
I am long.