Serious Fraud Office alleges UK businessman made corrupt payments

Investigators accuse Bill Lowther of paying for son of Vietnamese bank governor to attend Durham University Anti-bribery investigators are prosecuting a British businessman for allegedly conspiring to corruptly pay for the son of a top-ranking foreign official to be educated at Durham University in a clandestine deal to land a profitable contract. The Serious Fraud Office has charged 71-year-old Cumbrian businessman Bill Lowther as part of a growing bribery investigation that has already seen a string of prosecutions, arrests and raids across three continents over suspected multi-million pound payments spanning a decade. The SFO, along with police in Australia and Asia, has been investigating alleged corrupt conduct by a banknote printing firm which is half-owned by a company based in a small Cumbrian market town. The SFO confirmed that Lowther was charged on 8 September with taking part in a conspiracy to help secure a university place for the son of the then governor of Vietnam’s state-owned bank and paying his fees and accommodation costs. Lowther is due to appear at City of Westminster magistrates court in London on Tuesday 20 September. The move comes after seven senior executives from the banknote printing firm , Securency, were charged over the summer by Australian police for allegedly funnelling bribes to officials in Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. The SFO’s prosecution is being mounted at a time when the British government has stepped up its attempts to crack down on corporate corruption. A stronger law aimed at prosecuting executives who pay backhanders to foreign politicians and officials to win big contracts overseas came into force in July. It was introduced after Britain endured constant criticism for managing to prosecute only a paltry number of firms for the offence. The SFO and Australian police allege that the Securency executives bribed Le Duc Thuy, the then bank governor, to induce him to award the firm a contract to print Vietnam’s currency in 2003. His son, Le Duc Minh, completed a postgraduate course at the university’s business school in 2003-4. This summer the Guardian tracked down the son, in Hanoi. He denied his education was funded through corrupt payments and said both the fees for his studying and his living costs while at Durham, totalling more than £10,000, were paid by his family. He said : “I believe that none of my school friends or lecturers at Durham ever thought that I looked like a rich boy at school.” Lowther is the first to be charged by the SFO during its investigation into Securency. The investigation came out into the open last October when the SFO arrested and later bailed Lowther and four other individuals , and raided eight homes across the UK and an office. Lowther, a former Securency director, has been awarded a OBE and CBE during his business career as well as an honorary knighthood from the king of Belgium, according to a local press report. After his arrest he resigned as deputy chairman of Innovia Films , a specialist manufacturer in Wigton, Cumbria which owns half of Securency. Both Innovia and the Australian central bank which owns the other half of Securency have been trying to sell their stakes in the firm since last November. Securency, which prints special durable currency used in 31 countries, was reportedly in line to win a contract to print the £5 banknote , but the Bank of England recently cancelled the deal. In another strand of its inquiries into Securency, the SFO has been scrutinising suspected bribes to Nigerian officials. Richard Alderman, the director of the SFO, told MPs in July that his agency was investigating “about 26″ cases of bribery. Serious Fraud Office Vietnam Australia Banking Durham University Higher education Rob Evans John Burn-Murdoch Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 15, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.