New blow for the SFO after £35m fraud trial collapses - Business News - Business - London Evening Standard:
"A major anti-corruption trial brought by the Serious Fraud Office collapsed today following the intervention of the deputy prime minister of Bahrain and sudden withdrawal of key witnesses.
Billionaire Victor Dahdaleh — a Labour Party donor with ties to Tony Blair — was accused of paying more than £35 million in bribes to former managers at Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), the fourth-largest aluminium smelter in the world, in return for contracts worth more than £2 billion.
However, last week the court was told the deputy prime minister of Bahrain wrote to the head of the Serious Fraud Office and to the Attorney General, claiming all the payments made by Dahdaleh had been approved.
Today the Serious Fraud Office, which has been embarrassed by a series of high-profile failures to tackle corruption, withdrew its case after one of its witnesses, former Alba chief executive Bruce Hall, appeared to change his evidence. Accordingly, the jury returned verdicts of not guilty on all eight charges."
'via Blog this'
No comments:
Post a Comment