Petrofac’s Founder Sued After Bribery and Money Laundering Allegations!


Oil service provider “Petrofac” is under a lawsuit after one of its founders Ayman Asfari has been pleaded guilty to bribery and various other corruption charges. The oil company currently is being investigated by the serious fraud office (SFO) for suspected corruption, bribery and money laundering charges.

The SFO started its inquiry in 2017 into allegations that Petrofac had laundered money and paid bribes. Following the investigation, the share price of Petrofac fell from £9 to £3.47 and faced a huge loss of 14% of its worth. The shareholders stated that Petrofac issued misleading and false statements and inquiries concerning all the alleged frauds. They also claimed that the company failed to disclose important compliance policies. However, earlier this year, the share price recovered a little but has again fallen back to £4.

About the cases against Asfari:

A major financial backer of the company, Asfari together with his wife, has almost donated £800,000 to Petrofac since 2009. However, as per the Serious Fraud office’s investigation, in 2017, Ayman Asfari was charged for a scam and later was questioned about his company’s Petrofac activities related to Unaoil. He was interviewed and arrested alongside a former chief operating officer of Petrofac under caution in 2017 by the SFO, and later released without any charge. While Asfari completely denied all the charges made against him, he was suspended from his position. However, later in May 2018, he resumed his duties as Petrofac’s Chief Executive.





Apart from this, Ayman Asfari was also fined a huge sum of £300,000 for insider trading by the Consob-an Italian market regulator. But, he again denied all the charges and said that he’ll fight against the fine. However, he lost this case in March this year.  In 2018, Asfari even faced a great humiliation of falling out of the Forbes Billionaire list. He even bought the shares of Petrofac and developed his stake from a few percents but this also didn’t work in his favors.

At present, it’s certain that the future of both Petrofac and Ayman Asfari is uncertain. The case is ongoing under the SFO’s team, and other members and executives of Petrofac are also being questioned.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Mystery of Ayman Asfari

Image
The chief executive of Petrofac Ltd was once upon a time a billionaire on the Forbes annual billionaire list. However, in 2018, Ayman Asfari dropped off this list. It decline in wealth could be due to financial and legal woes that his company is facing. Who is Ayman Asfari? Ayman Asfari is a son of a diplomat. He was born in Syria, but was raised outside his country. He studied at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, in the US and possesses an MSc in civil and urban engineering from the prestigious University of Pennsylvania. He also has an MBA from Wharton School. His Career Graph After completing his studies, Ayman Asfari worked in Oman as a consulting engineer for oil companies, where he used to carry out soil testing. Prior to joining Petrofac Ltd, he was the managing director of a civil and mechanical construction company. When Asfari joined Petrofac in 1991, it had just one plant in Texas. In 2001, he bought the company and made it public in 2005. Petrof...
Read more

The controversial life of Ayman Asfari

Head of Petrofac Ltd., Ayman Asfari, is facing bankruptcy for his involvement in a circumvention and bribery case. There has been a considerable reduction in the estimated worth and shares of the company owing to the investigation carried out by the British serious fraud office. Owing to such severe charges, the personal fortune of Ayman Asfari faces the risk of being ceased. Where the troubles began The troubles became apparent when the half-yearly results of 2017 came in. The company published in its reports that the debt has risen and the net cash flow has deteriorated significantly. This led to the reduction of capital expenditure by the company by around 100 million USD. The investors were in for a bad shock when the company paid out dividends which accounted for only half of what was paid in 2016. Ayman Asfari blamed the poor oil market conditions for such financial deters. The same was followed by an investigation being held by the UK Serious Fraud Office. As...
Read more