Trafigura director deflects blame at Swiss corruption trial

By Emma Farge

BELLINZONA, Switzerland (Reuters) - A Trafigura board member on Wednesday said prosecutors should focus on one of the company's former executives, who has already been convicted on bribery charges elsewhere, when asked about corrupt payments at a trial in Switzerland.

The Swiss case is the first time the country's top criminal court will rule on a company's liability for corrupting a foreign official. Swiss prosecutors allege that Trafigura and three other defendants paid bribes to an Angolan official worth over $5 million to win oil deals between 2009-2011.

Trafigura has said the anti-bribery and anti-corruption controls and the compliance programme in place at its parent company at the time met both legal requirements and good practice standards.

Taking the stand for the first time on behalf of the company since the trial opened this week, Trafigura director Mark Irwin said that a former executive, Mariano Marcondes Ferraz, who is a key witness in the case, was "the only explanation" for payments to the Angolan official.

Irwin, who is not a defendant in the case, was a Trafigura supervisory board member at the time.

Ferraz was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018 for oil corruption charges in Brazil. Reuters has not been able to establish his whereabouts, and he did not immediately respond to attempts to reach him. Lawyers who represented him in the past also did not respond.

Asked by Judge David Bouverat to account for the payments to the Angolan official, Irwin said: "The only explanation is that Mariano Ferraz ... was the common factor in this pattern of events."

He referred to Ferraz's senior role in Trafigura's Angola joint venture DT Group, which Swiss prosecutors say was involved in transferring payments that went to the Angolan official via intermediaries.

Earlier this week, the company failed to have Ferraz's evidence in the Swiss case struck off on the grounds that he had reached an illegal deal with Swiss prosecutors. The prosecutors say Ferraz's testimony was obtained in line with Swiss law.

A former Trafigura executive and accountant Mike Wainwright, 51, who is a defendant in the case also took the stand on Wednesday. His presence is a rare instance of a former top executive of a trading firm being tried in a corruption case.

Sitting with his arms folded, the Briton told the court via an interpreter that he did not remember or author a document that was used to open a key intermediary company used for the alleged payments.

He also said he was not responsible for opening bank accounts on behalf of Trafigura as Swiss prosecutors had previously implied. Asked why he was involved in some of the financial transactions cited in the case file, he said: "The best explanation is: it's who I am. I like to understand what happens in the business."

His lawyers have said he rejects all the allegations against him and is confident the case will be dismissed.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Mark Potter)