Legal News

Breaking: Jury Finds Frederic Bourke Guilty of Bribery-Related Charges

By Jennifer Forsyth

In the third day of deliberations, a jury of seven women and five men found Frederic Bourke, a founder of the accessories firm Dooney & Bourke, guilty of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the travel act and making false statements to federal law-enforcement officials. The charges were related to a scheme to bribe Azerbaijan government officials in connection with the privatization of the State Oil Co. of the Azerbaijan.

Our fine colleague at Dow Jones Newswires, Chad Bray, reports that Bourke was found not guilty of a single-count of money laundering conspiracy.

Nonetheless, the conviction on the other counts are sure to please DOJ at a time in which it has made foreign bribery and enforcement of FCPA a high priority.

Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan had alleged Bourke was aware of an improper scheme by Viktor Kozeny, president and chairman of Oily Rock Group Ltd., to bribe Azeri officials in order to allow an investment consortium created by Kozeny to buy a controlling interest in Socar. The scheme ran between 1997 and 1999.

As for Kozeny, who has been charged criminally by federal prosecutors in the Socar bribery case, he’s is in the Bahamas fighting extradition. Prosecutors have said Kozeny earned the nickname, the “Pirate of Prague,” because of underhanded dealings in the Czech Republic during privatization of industries there in the early or mid-1990s. [End of Post]

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 10, 2009 (boomark / email).