The Serious Fraud Office inquiry into Britain’s engineering giant Rolls-Royce was expanded earlier this year over suspicions the company was involved in bribery in Iraq, new documents have revealed.
Papers filed at the high court in London show how the four-year SFO investigation into Rolls-Royce took a fresh turn in March when investigators arrested a man at a British airport.
This led the SFO to begin looking at Unaoil, a Monaco-based oil and gas firm, which is accused of paying bribes on behalf of dozens of multinational firms, including Rolls-Royce, to help them win contracts.
The documents reveal the SFO’s investigation into Unaoil was, in part, sparked by suspicions it had acted corruptly on behalf of Rolls-Royce over its business dealings in Iraq since 2005.
The new documents have been filed as part of a legal dispute between the SFO and Unaoil. A court hearing into the dispute is due to start on Thursday.
In its claim, Unaoil describes how a businessman working for its firm was arrested at a British airport in March.
According to the claim, the SFO at this time opened its criminal investigation into Unaoil which the anti-fraud agency alleges was involved in “serious fraud and corruption” and does not conduct “any legitimate lawful business”.
Unaoil has flatly denied the corruption claims, adding that some of the information that formed the basis of the allegations against it “has been gathered as a result of criminal activity including extortion”.
According to the court documents, the two cheques worth £950,000 and £925,000 – found on the arrested man – appear to have been from Unaoil and had been made payable to a company that was believed by the SFO to be owned by a suspected Iraqi agent.
In its submission, the SFO claims emails were found that “support a strong suspicion of an ongoing corrupt relationship” involving Unaoil.
Unaoil argues that the cheques were dated 2013 and 2014 and had expired without being cashed and “therefore could not have been evidence of any past or ongoing criminality”. The SFO counters that the cheques could still be cashed for up to six years.
According to the documents, the SFO cited the cheques when it asked police in Monaco to raid Unaoil’s headquarters the following day. The headquarters were raided on 29 March.
On the following day, journalists at Australia’s Fairfax Media, drawing on a leak of thousands of Unaoil’s documents, alleged that the firm had systematically corrupted the global oil industry, distributing millions of dollars of bribes on behalf of Rolls-Royce and other multinationals which were seeking to secure contracts.
At the high court hearing next Thursday, Unaoil, Ata Ahsani, its chairman, and his two sons, Cyrus and Saman, are challenging the legality of the raid on their Monaco headquarters, claiming that the “excessively wide fishing expedition” amounted to an unlawful misuse of the SFO’s powers. They are asking for damages for violations of their human rights.
They are also asking for “the large quantity of important business material” seized in the raid to be returned to them, and the copies held by the SFO to be destroyed, as they say they are unable to carry on their normal business.
However the SFO has refused to give them access to the material, arguing that it is “unpersuaded that Unaoil conducts any legitimate lawful business”.
Investigators seized more than 60 terabytes of data from the firm – 30 times the size of data leaked from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca that comprised the so-called Panama Papers.
The SFO is contesting the legal challenge, arguing that their actions were legal and that the Unaoil executives are attempting to “delay and disrupt an ongoing criminal investigation into serious fraud and corruption”.
The SFO began to investigate Rolls-Royce in 2012 over allegations that a network of its agents made illicit payments to land large contracts around the world.
Last month a joint Guardian/BBC investigation reported that part of this SFO investigation was into allegations Rolls-Royce had hired Unaoil to help it secure contracts in at least five different countries, including Angola, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
Rolls-Royce said it was fully co-operating with the investigations and cannot comment in detail.
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