Three men sentenced in $20m Angolan oil corruption case

Three former senior employees of the F.H Bertling group were today sentenced at Southwark Crown Court.

This follows an SFO investigation into corrupt payments made to an agent of the Angolan state oil company, Sonangol, in relation to F.H Bertling’s freight forwarding business in Angola and a contract worth approximately $20 million.

Joerg Blumberg, Dirk Juergensen and Marc Schweiger were sentenced, fined and disqualified as company directors following their convictions for conspiracy to make corrupt payments earlier this year.

Marc Schweiger, a German national living in Uganda, was the manager responsible for the Africa market when the corrupt activity took place between January 2004 and December 2006.

Joerg Blumberg worked as Group CFO while Dirk Juergensen was the Managing Director of the UK subsidiary F.H. Bertling Ltd. Both are German nationals living in Germany.

Sentencing the men, His Honour HHJ Pegden QC said:

“[This crime] causes significant environmental impact and deprives the community, especially in developing countries of proper and honest business transactions and undermines international relations. It deprives others of the opportunity for advancement.

“Each [defendant] played a significant role in the fraudulent activity, which required discussion and planning and was pursued for a year in total for the company’s financial gain.”

Joerg Blumberg, Dirk Juergensen and Marc Schwieger were each given a 20 month sentence, suspended for 2 years, a £20,000 fine, payable within 3 months with a default sentence of 1 year for non-payment and were disqualified from being company directors for 5 years.