The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced on Wednesday, 22 September, that five men have been charged with conspiracy to corrupt over the award of contracts in major engineering projects in the energy sector. The aggregate value of the contracts is GBP 66 million.
The charges follow a two-year investigation commenced by the SFO in May 2008, after a referral by the City of London Police.
Between 1 January 2001 and 31 August 2009, the five men are alleged to have passed confidential information to others who then offered it to companies bidding for high-value energy contracts in return for a percentage of the contract value. Some of the defendants were at the time employed by the companies responsible for the procurement of these projects.
The defendants appeared before the City of London Magistrates' Court on Wednesday and the case has now been sent to Southwark Crown Court for a plea and case management hearing on 23 November 2010.
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