A corruption case between the state oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), and Swiss energy giant Vitol has reached its first trial in the United States. Javier Aguilar, a 49-year-old US citizen who in 2020 said he paid bribes to officials in Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil, appeared for the first time Monday before a federal judge in Texas.

The US accuses Aguilar of allegedly violating anti-bribery provisions…

A corruption case between the state oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), and Swiss energy giant Vitol has reached its first trial in the United States. Javier Aguilar, a 49-year-old US citizen who in 2020 said he paid bribes to officials in Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil, appeared for the first time Monday before a federal judge in Texas.

The US accused Aguilar of allegedly violating the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The five indictments, filed on August 3, allege Aguilar was a former oil manager and trader for Vitol Inc., the US subsidiary of the Vitol group of companies, one of the world’s largest energy traders. “The former employee allegedly agreed with others to bribe Mexican officials to obtain business benefits related to contracts with the Mexican Government, through Pemex Procurement International (PPI). He is also charged with money laundering in connection with the scheme,” said a statement issued by the US Department of Justice.

In December 2020, Vitol executives admitted to authorities in the United States that they had paid bribes to Petróleos Mexicanos, as well as officials in Brazil and Ecuador, in exchange for inside information that would help them win contract bids. The case originally opened in New York, where a judge later dismissed the charges, considering the State not the right party to hear the case. At that time, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, issued his own complaint, for which a parallel investigation was launched in Mexico.

Months later, Pemex’s general director, Octavio Romero, reported that Vitol had offered $17 million to compensate damages for the corruption, in addition to completing work on the contract “no fee”. López Obrador, for his part, says his compensation is higher, at around $30 million. It wasn’t until June 2021, without his own findings from an investigation conducted in Mexico, that López Obrador said in his press conference that Vitol should provide the names of Pemex employees who accepted bribes. In September 2021, Reuters reported that Pemex had canceled its contract with Vitol, to continue their negotiations a year later.

According to the US Department of Justice, Aguilar allegedly met with the procurement manager of Pemex’s private division of Houston, PPI, between September 2017 and April 2018, and agreed to make irregular payments for confidential inside information to help Vitol win business with PPI, including contracts. to supply ethane to Pemex via PPI. Aguilar reportedly agreed to make payments totaling around $600,000 to help Vitol win the ethane contract.

“In furtherance of the bribery scheme and concealment of the proceeds derived from it, Aguilar and his accomplices caused bribes to be paid through a series of transactions and shell companies, according to the indictment,” said the statement issued from Texas.

Although PPI operates as a private company in the US, its employees must be prosecuted as public officials, because PPI is a wholly owned subsidiary of a state-owned company, say federal authorities in the US. a former employee of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) private foreign agency, CFE International, who is facing a civil case in the US for allegedly awarding leverage contracts to an unidentified US company.

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