(Bloomberg) -- Lawyers for Trafigura Group argued that the bribery charges it faces are part of an unjust “crusade” by Swiss prosecutors who are scrutinizing commodity trading practices in a major hub for the industry.
At the trial, lawyers for the defendants have repeatedly criticized the case against them for a reliance on testimony given by a convicted former Trafigura executive, Mariano Marcondes Ferraz, and for making a scapegoat of the company’s late founder Claude Dauphin.
Prosecutors are targeting Trafigura on charges that it didn’t take reasonable steps to prevent bribery, and are pushing for prison terms for its former chief operating officer Mike Wainwright, the operator of an intermediary - Thierry Plojoux and Gouveia Junior.
Ferraz is not being tried despite his involvement in setting up a Swiss bank account for Angolan official Paolo Gouveia Junior, to which payments were funneled.
“It sounds like a parable from the Gospel,” Jean-Francois Ducrest, a lawyer representing Trafigura, said in court on Wednesday. “The untouchable accuses the dead man, with the blessing of the Attorney General, which has given advance absolution for the sins of the former and reserved the punishment for the memory of the latter.”
Trafigura says the evidence from Ferraz is compromised as it was given in exchange for a reduced sentence in a separate criminal case in Brazil. The court last week rejected a request by Trafigura to have the testimony from the Ferraz thrown out.
On Tuesday, Gouveia Junior’s lawyer said the Angolan official was a tool of Ferraz’s bribery scheme.
Swiss prosecutors used improper, if not illegal, means of cooperation with Brazilian authorities to use Ferraz’s testimony to build the case against Trafigura, Ducrest said.
“Without Ferraz the indictment falls apart into a thousand pieces,” said Ducrest.
Trafigura has rejected the charges and said before and during the trial that its compliance programs at the time were robust and were among the best in the entire commodity-trading sector, not least because it was constantly looking to make them better.
On Wednesday afternoon, it sought to persuade the judges’ panel that its know-your-customer checks and other anti-corruption measures were solid. Trafigura lawyer Myriam Fehr-Alaoui read out a message that laid out the warning all employees were made of.
“No Trafigura employee may turn a blind eye to the activity of an intermediary acting on behalf of Trafigura,” read the message displayed on a screen in the courtroom.
“There is a very high risk that Trafigura may be held liable for any acts of bribery and corruption committed by intermediaries. It is essential that Trafigura and its employees are aware of the destination and purpose of all funds which an intermediary uses on behalf of Trafigura.”
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