Swiss court denies Trafigura bid to dismiss corruption case

GENEVA : A Swiss court on Tuesday rejected arguments made by Trafigura’s lawyers to either throw out an ongoing corruption trial or to strike out a portion of evidence against the company provided by a key witness, four sources close to the matter told Reuters.
However, the panel of three judges is still considering a third Trafigura request which seeks to disregard a portion of the evidence in the case, citing a 15-year statute of limitations under Swiss law, the sources said.
The high-profile case brought by Swiss prosecutors involves Trafigura and three other defendants, including a former executive, and alleges they were involved in bribing an Angolan official in exchange for oil contracts between 2009-2011.
Trafigura declined to comment on Tuesday.
“The Attorney General’s office takes note of the decisions of the court on the prejudicial questions,” a spokesperson for the Attorney General said, without detailing the decisions.
Trafigura and its former executive Mike Wainwright are defending themselves in court. Trafigura has said the anti-bribery and anti-corruption controls and its compliance programme in place at its parent company at the time met both legal requirements and good practice standards at the time.
Wainwright has not yet been heard by the court. He rejects the allegations against him.
The sources following the case said Trafigura’s lawyers had sought in the first day of proceedings on Monday to end the case on the grounds that it undermined the presumption of innocence of its late founder Claude Dauphin, who died of cancer in 2015.
Dauphin, considered a godfather of the oil trading business, is named dozens of times in the indictment which says he “must have been involved” in the decision to make payments to the Angolan official.
Dauphin’s family has previously said he is being singled out unfairly.
The sources said that another argument made by Trafigura lawyers was that the testimony of former Trafigura executive Mariano Marcondes Ferraz, which features heavily in the indictment, should be struck out from the case on the grounds that Swiss prosecutors had made unlawful promises to him.
Trafigura lawyers argued that Swiss prosecutors granted him protection from prosecution in Switzerland as part of a cooperation deal, according to the sources following the trial.
Swiss prosecutors have previously said that evidence from Ferraz was obtained in line with Swiss law.
Ferraz has been convicted in a parallel case in Brazil and is not a defendant in the Swiss case.
The trial continues until at least Dec. 20 with the four defendants set to testify this week, according to the court.