Swiss energy trader Gunvor pays Ecuador $93.6 million to settle Petroecuador corruption case

Swiss energy commodities trader Gunvor has paid Ecuador $93.6 million in an agreement reached in a corruption case and the funds have been credited to the country’s treasury, the Attorney General’s office reported Monday.

The company pleaded guilty in a U.S. court in March to violating corruption laws and paying Ecuadorian officials bribes from 2012 to 2020 to ensure business with state-run oil company Petroecuador, the procurator said in a statement.

Neither Gunvor nor Petroecuador commented publicly on the payment based on a non-disclosure agreement, but a spokesman for the Attorney General said it was satisfied that the amount paid covered both penalties as well as direct loses to the government due to the bribery of state officials.

In its U.S. testimony, a Gunvor vice president admitted that the company erred in bribing seven officials but said doing business with Petroecuador and the Ecuadorian government was a “pay to play scenario” during the administrations of former president Rafeal Correa and his successor Lenin Moreno. “We should have suspended our contracts when payments were demanded but the project managers were overly eager to maintain the accounts as more work was promised from Petroecuador,” the vice president testified in a Miami court.

He added that there were “many outstretched hands” among Ecuadorian government officials in the mid-2000s. “The country’s vice president and energy minister were among those who demanded and received bribes, indicating the extent of government corruption.”

The Miami federal court ordered Gunvor to pay a fine of $374.5 million and turn over $287 million in illegally obtained profits. The court also convicted former Correa government official Nilsen Arias, then Foreign Trade Manager of Petroecuador, who confessed to his participation in corruption.

Following the U.S. trial, the Swiss federal prosecutor’s office negotiated an agreement between Gunvor and Ecuador, resulting in the $93.6 million payment to the Ecuadorian treasury.