On the coronary heart of Trafigura Group’s landmark Swiss corruption trial is hotly contested proof from a person who for a number of years was one of many buying and selling home’s most senior executives, however who gained’t be anyplace close to the courthouse.
Switzerland’s federal legal courtroom in Bellinzona on Tuesday rejected a request by Trafigura to have the testimony from convicted former government Mariano Marcondes Ferraz thrown out.
The Brazilian dealer, who ran the Angolan oil enterprise being investigated, isn’t anticipated to seem on the trial happening over the subsequent few weeks. However Ferraz’s title is talked about greater than 200 occasions in Switzerland’s indictment of Trafigura — which is charged by way of its Dutch dad or mum Trafigura Beheer BV — and three people, together with former chief working officer Mike Wainwright.
- Advertisement -
Ferraz’s proof, given over the course of 4 interviews with prosecutors in 2022 and 2023, was the main focus of a lot of the controversy on the primary day of proceedings. Legal professionals for Trafigura and Wainwright requested for his testimony to be thrown out, arguing that it was tainted by being given as a part of a cooperation settlement with prosecutors. With out it, they steered, the entire case would collapse.
“No Mariano Ferraz, no indictment, no trial,” mentioned Trafigura’s lawyer, Jean-Francois Ducrest.
Brazilian and Swiss legal professionals for Ferraz declined to remark. The 4 defendants, together with a intermediary who can solely be known as P., and the alleged recipient of the bribes, Paulo Gouveia Junior, who was CEO of Sonangol Distribuidora SA, deny the fees towards them.
Sonangol Official
Gouveia Junior took the stand on Tuesday morning. The 65-year outdated was questioned by the presiding decide about Wyland Group, the corporate by way of which he was accused of accepting the equal of greater than $4 million in bribes.
Gouveia Junior mentioned that creating the entity was Ferraz’s thought, as a approach for him to shortly convert US {dollars} into kwanza, the Angolan foreign money the previous Trafigura government wanted to run the native enterprise at a time of wildly swinging inflation within the southern African nation.
“It was maybe one of many errors I made was to not have administered the Wyland firm myself,” he mentioned. Requested why he didn’t push Ferraz for particulars on what the cash was for, Gouveia Junior mentioned “it will have been indiscreet for me to take action.”
When one of many Swiss prosecutors confronted Gouveia Junior with a letter from 2010 wherein he, not Ferraz, despatched directions to the Geneva financial institution the place Wyland had its account, Gouveia Junior mentioned he couldn’t recall the specifics of that correspondence.
Ferraz joined Trafigura in 2007, in accordance with a biography in an organization annual report, although Wainwright on Tuesday mentioned that he hadn’t grow to be an worker till 2008 or 2009.
He had beforehand labored for Glencore Plc and its predecessor Marc Wealthy + Co. — the buying and selling home the place Claude Dauphin and Trafigura’s different founders had lower their tooth.
Championed by Dauphin, Ferraz grew to become chief government of the corporate’s Angolan joint-venture DT Group in 2009. That gave him a key function in a rustic that was an necessary supply of enterprise for Trafigura.
It additionally positioned Ferraz in proximity to native companions like Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento, an in depth affiliate of former Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos. The Angolan official, generally often called Common Dino, was later positioned underneath US sanctions for allegedly stealing billions of {dollars} by way of embezzlement.
In 2014, when Dauphin stepped down as CEO because of unwell well being, Ferraz was elevated to Trafigura’s interior circle — its eight-man administration board.
His spell on the high was quick. In 2016, he was arrested in Sao Paulo airport on his method to London, as a part of the Brazil’s sweeping Automobile Wash corruption probe.
Ferraz was accused of paying Petrobras’s then-director of oil procurement $868,450 in return for inflated worth contracts for his firm, Decal do Brasil, and finally sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2018. Whereas Trafigura was not concerned in that case, in 2019, Ferraz agreed to collaborate with Brazilian prosecutors, and began giving proof towards his former colleagues.
That has already proved painful for Trafigura as soon as this yr: when the corporate pleaded responsible to US prices it paid bribes for oil offers, Ferraz was one in every of two Trafigura executives described as directing the bribes. The opposite was Dauphin.
Now Ferraz is as soon as once more a key determine within the Swiss trial, wherein Trafigura is accused of bribing an Angolan official, Gouveia Junior, from 2009 to 2011.
Trafigura’s lawyer Ducrest confirmed messages between Swiss and Brazilian prosecutors to the courtroom on Monday, claiming that they’d coordinated “a complicated and camouflaged operation” as to how Ferraz’s testimony was for use within the case.
Wainwright’s lawyer Daniel Kinzer mentioned the truth that Ferraz was heard as a witness moderately than as a defendant, given his function within the case, “is proof he was given a deal” and immunity from prosecution.
Swiss prosecutors by no means advised Ferraz that he wouldn’t be a defendant or that he’d by no means be prosecuted, however solely that any testimony he gave to the Swiss wouldn’t be used towards him, the courtroom dominated on Tuesday in rejecting Trafigura’s bid.
