Gunvor pays more than US$93 million to Ecuador for bribes at the state oil company

The multinational Gunvor, based in Switzerland, delivered US$93,640,017 to Ecuador this Tuesday, within the framework of a judicial conviction for having bribed officials of the state oil company Petroecuador in exchange for the awarding of contracts between 2012 and 2020.

This was confirmed by the State Attorney General’s Office in a statement in which it certified that the funds delivered by Gunvor have already entered the single account of the National Treasury.

On June 6, the Attorney General’s Office had reached an agreement with Gunvor for the million-dollar payment.

Gunvor, who had been convicted in Switzerland, also pleaded guilty in a trial in the United States to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The conviction in the United States occurred in the context of a case in which the Ecuadorian Nilsen Arias, a former foreign trade manager at Petroecuador, involved in the bribery scheme, was also sentenced.

According to the ruling of the US Justice, a part of the millionaire fine imposed on Gunvor, for a total of 374.5 million dollars, had to be paid to Ecuador after having pleaded guilty to having delivered bribes abroad, including to officials. Ecuadorians.

In Ecuador, several former officials of Petroecuador, as well as of the Gunvor company in Ecuador, face a criminal process known as the ‘Alianza’ case for the crime of bribery, for bribes allegedly paid between 2012 and 2020.

According to investigations carried out in Switzerland, between 2013 and 2017, a former Gunvor employee, with the help of two intermediaries through an offshore company (domiciled in a tax haven), paid bribes worth US$ 7.5 million to a Ecuadorian official who held an executive position at Petroecuador.

In exchange for these payments, the Ecuadorian oil company had awarded contracts to two companies connected to Gunvor.