Alstom: a critical case for the SFO to win

 Three different bribery cases against Alstom will be coming to court in London over the coming twelve months and the outcome is of considerable importance to both the Serious Fraud Office and to the UK's international profile on prosecuting corporate bribery. There hasn't been much on the way of in depth coverage as to these cases in the financial press, with most commentators merely repeating the SFO's own press statements. Using open source intelligence techniques, not only can investigators gain a more detailed understanding of the evidence against Alstom in each of these three cases, but they can also quickly find ongoing legal actions against Alstom in other countries. Here is how!

The SFO's cases against Alstom Network UK and Alstom Power Ltd

1. First up will be the case against Alstom Network UK regarding allegations of bribery for the supply of trains to the Budapest metro system. This trial is set to start in May at Southwark Crown Court. Local press in Hungary alleges that a large part of the payments made went to the family company of the ex-President of Hungary, Péter Medgyessy.
2. In September the case against  Alstom Power Ltd will come to the same court; this case deals with issues around the refurbishment of a power plant in Lithuania. The local Lithuanian press has be studiously silent on the issue so far.
3. The third case is scheduled to be heard in January of 2018 and is the larger of the cases, dealing again with Alstom Transport UK and contracts in Poland, Tunisia and in India. In Tunisia it is alleged that Alstom paid $14mn to Slim Chiboub, son-in-law of the country's then President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

We will deal with each of these cases seperately in the coming days, giving background as to the details in each case and explaining, where possible, the role of each of the individuals concerned.

Alstom's legal issues will not only focus on the UK this year; an on-going price-fixing and fraud case is due to enter the Brazilian courts later this year, where the evidence against the company has been furnished by a whistle-blower - Siemens Brazil, which turned State's witness and reported the issue to the Sao Paolo authorities back in 2013.

In 2011 the Swiss authorities fined Alstom $42mn (between fines and compensation payments) for a global bribery probe that focused on Indonesia and Tunisia; and in November 2015 the US Department of Justice fined the group a massive $772mn to settle criminal charges regarding a "widespread corruption scheme involving at least $75 million in secret bribes paid to government officials in countries around the world, including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Bahamas and Taiwan".

Whilst the amounts alleged in the SFO charges are lesser, a clear pattern emerges of institutionalised misdemeanours, and one of the issues I will be focusing on is to show the links of various of the individuals charged in the UK to other past cases, and how the corporate structure of Alstom evolved to enable this business method to continue and was condoned within the company at the highest levels.

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