West Africa Whistleblowers Can Earn Large Financial Rewards By Anonymously Exposing Bribes Given To Government Officials, Market Manipulation Schemes, Sanction Violations, Money Laundering, and other Illegal Conduct Committed by Multinational Corporations by West Africa International Whistleblower Reward Lawyer and International Bounty Action Lawyer Jason S. Coomer
Internation Whistleblowers in West Africa as well as international professionals working in West Africa can earn large financial reward by anonymously exposing illegal conduct. The United States wants information regarding illegal bribery schemes, market manipulation schemes, and violations of sanctions. More specifically, CFTC and SEC bounty actions target Multinational Corporations that pay illegal kickbacks and bribes to West African government officials, violate sanctions, or manipulate the commodoties markets. Further, international whistleblowers can earn large financial rewards by anonymously exposing bribes for construction contracts, mining contracts, drilling contracts, and other international government contracts. These rewards can be collected anonymously by West Africa Whistleblowers who are represented by a United States Bounty Action Lawyer. The West Africa Whistleblower must have original information regarding significant bribes or fraud.
If you are aware of illegal international trade practices including violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA), Securities Exchange Act, or Commodity Exchange Act by a large multinational corporation, please feel free to contact West Africa Whistleblower Reward Lawyer Jason Coomer via e-mail message or use our submission form for a confidential review of a West Africa Whistleblower Reward Bounty Action.
West African Bribes, Kickbacks, and Corruption Have Resulted in West African Anti-Bribery Laws That Combine With The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act To Allow West African Whistleblowers to Collect Large Financial Rewards For Properly Exposing Large Corporations Who Are Bribing Government Officials
West Africa is the westernmost subcontinent of Africa and includes Benin, Burkina Faso, the island of Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, the island of Saint Helena, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sao Tome and Principe and Togo. Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Niger are mostly in the Sahel, a transition zone between the Sahara desert and the Sudanian Savanna. Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Nigeria compose Guinea, the traditional name for the area near the Gulf of Guinea. The region has an estimated population of 340,000,000.
West Africa has a large economy with an abundant supply of natural resources and well-developed financial, legal, communications, and transport sectors. Led by Nigeria, West Africa does substantial business with the United States and several multinational corporations. A major source of revenue for the region includes oil drilling and mining for other resources. Because a significant portion of the revenues and profits from oil were lost to corruption and bribes from the 1960 until 2000, the Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Act 2000 was enacted to protect Nigeria's population from corruption. This law and other West African anti-corruption laws combined with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act have created the ability of International Whistleblowers in West Africa to obtain large financial rewards for properly exposing large corporations who violate international law by paying bribes to government officials for oil contracts, procurement contracts, construction contracts, and other large public works contracts. Significant violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act include the below cases:
Kellogg Brown & Root LLC Pleads Guilty to Foreign Bribery Charges and Agrees to Pay $402 Million Criminal Fine
Enforcement Actions by DOJ and SEC Result in Penalties of $579 Million for KBR's Participation in a Scheme to Bribe Nigerian Government Officials to Obtain Contracts
Kellogg Brown & Root LLC (KBR), a global engineering, construction and services company based in Houston, pled guilty to charges related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for its participation in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts. The EPC contracts to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities on Bonny Island, Nigeria, were valued at more than $6 billion. KBR entered guilty pleas to a five-count criminal information in federal court in Houston before U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison. As part of the plea agreement, KBR agreed to pay a $402 million criminal fine. According to court documents, KBR was part of a four-company joint venture that was awarded four EPC contracts by Nigeria LNG Ltd. (NLNG) between 1995 and 2004 to build LNG facilities on Bonny Island. The government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was the largest shareholder of NLNG, owning 49 percent of the company.
KBR pled guilty to conspiring with its joint-venture partners and others to violate the FCPA by authorizing, promising and paying bribes to a range of Nigerian government officials, including officials of the executive branch of the Nigerian government, NNPC officials, and NLNG officials, to obtain the EPC contracts. KBR also pleaded guilty to four counts of violating the FCPA related to the joint venture's payment of tens of millions of dollars in "consulting fees" to two agents for use in bribing Nigerian government officials. KBR admitted that, at crucial junctures before the award of the EPC contracts, KBR's former CEO, Albert "Jack" Stanley, and others met with three successive former holders of a top-level office in the executive branch of the Nigerian government to ask the office holder to designate a representative with whom the joint venture should negotiate bribes to Nigerian government officials. Stanley and others negotiated bribe amounts with the office holders' representatives and agreed to hire the two agents to pay the bribes. According to court documents, the joint venture paid approximately $132 million to the first agent, a consulting company incorporated in Gibraltar, and more than $50 million to the second agent, a global trading company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, during the course of the bribery scheme. KBR admitted that it had intended for these agents' fees to be used, in part, for bribes to Nigerian government officials.
German Engineering Firm Bilfinger Resolves Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Charges and Agrees to Pay $32 Million Criminal Penalty
Bilfinger SE, an international engineering and services company based in Mannheim, Germany, has agreed to pay a $32 million penalty to resolve charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by bribing government officials of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to obtain and retain contracts related to the Eastern Gas Gathering System (EGGS) project, which was valued at approximately $387 million.
Foreign multinational corporations who illegally bribe West African government officials and former government officials can be held accountable when they violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and other anti-bribery laws. These laws prevent government corruption including illegal payments to customs agents, bribes for construction contracts, illegal kickbacks for regulatory approval, and other illegal business practices. Through the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), whistleblowers are encouraged to step up and confidentially report corruption. Under new whistleblower protections, these West African whistleblowers and multinational corporation whistleblowers can confidentially report violations through a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Lawyer and receive large financial rewards for being the first to properly expose significant government corruption.
If you are aware of illegal international trade practices including violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA) by a multinational corporation in West Africa, please feel free to contact West Africa Whistleblower Reward Lawyer Jason Coomer via e-mail message or use our submission form.
West African Economic Community and West African Monetary Union Are Helping the International Crack Down on Government Corruption
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS; French: Communauté économique des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest, CEDEAO) is a regional group of fifteen West African countries including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. The West African Economic and Monetary Union (also known as UEMOA from its name in French, Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine) is an organization of eight, mainly francophone West African states within the ECOWAS, that was dominated otherwise by anglophone heavyweights like Nigeria and Ghana. It was established to promote economic integration among countries that share the CFA franc as a common currency.
There is a worldwide effort by the international community to crack down on government corruption, illegal kickbacks, and illegal bribes. This effort includes initiatives by the United States to identify and prosecute illegal international bribery schemes of West African government officials and other public officials. To identify hard to detect bribery schemes, the United States Securities Exchange Commission is offering large bounties (whistleblower rewards) for persons with specialized knowledge of systematic bribes and complicated bribery schemes. These large economic incentives are designed to encourage import export experts, customs experts, logistics experts, and other persons aware of complicated import and export bribes and government fraud to step up and become a confidential import export bribe whistleblower, customs fraud whistleblower, logistics whistleblower, and other international trade whistleblower.
The United States Bounty Actions are set up under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The FCPA applies to "issuers" (U.S. and foreign companies listed on U.S. securities exchanges and their employees); "domestic concerns" which run the gamut of business entities organized under U.S. laws or with their principal place of business in the United States; the officers, directors, employees, and agents of those U.S. business entities (irrespective of nationality); U.S. citizens; U.S. resident aliens; "any person" including all foreign persons, who commit an act in furtherance of a foreign bribe while in the United States, and U.S. businesses and nationals acting abroad. A Company must require all of its affiliated companies and all of their employees to comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
For information on specific types of West Africa Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Violations and potential West African International Bribery Scheme Whistleblower Reward Lawsuits, please go to the following web pages on:
Nigeria Bribe Whistleblower Lawsuit Information
Corporations that pay illegal kickbacks and bribes to government officials and former government officials in exchange for contracts including large building projects can be brought to justice and made to pay large penalties under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and whistleblowers that bring these corporations to justice may be able to collect large economic rewards under the Securities Exchange Act (SEC Whistleblower Bounty Actions) and the Commodity Exchange Act (CFTC Whisteblower Bounty Actions).
The Illegal Bribe Whistleblower or Illegal Kickback Whistleblower may be entitled to not only the amount of the illegal bribe or kickback, but the benefit of the illegal bribe or kickback. In cases where $100,000.00 bribe is made to obtain a $100 million building project, the Illegal Bribe Whistleblower or Illegal Kickback Whistleblower may be entitled to 10 to 30% of the $100,000,000.00 and the $100,000.00 translating into a $10 million to $30 million award.
As an US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Violation Lawyer, Jason S. Coomer commonly works with other powerful illegal international business contract bribe and whistleblower lawyers to handle large Multinational SEC Corporation Lawsuits.
If you are aware of illegal international trade practices including violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA) by a multinational corporation in Middle East, please feel free to contact International Business Whistleblower Reward Lawyer Jason Coomer via e-mail message or use our submission form