A British high street solicitor laundered huge sums of money in bribes to Nigeria via accounts in Switzerland and France, a London court was told during an extradition hearing yesterday.
Jeffrey Tesler, 61, allegedly funneled bribes in millions of dollars to Nigerian officials to facilitate an LNG contract at Bonny Island for US construction firm Halliburton. He faces extradition to the US, where he risks jail if convicted. But he denies that his alleged behaviour has sufficient connection to America to justify his being flown there for trial.
At Horseferry Road magistrates court, his counsel William Clegg said the US was not the victim. “This is an offense directed against the country of Nigeria,” he said.
US government counsel David Perry QC claimed that Tesler’s conduct had “clear links with the US.” He said US contractors received the benefit of corrupt payments totalling $132m transmitted by Tesler via Chase Manhattan, a bank in New York. In one of the largest penalties in US corporate history, Halliburton and associated companies have already paid out $579m for breaching anti-corruption laws over the Nigerian scandal.
The Nigerian government had set up a committee to investigate the involvement of Nigerian officials in the bribery scam. Though the committee, headed by the Inspector-General of Police, had interrogated a number of former public officers, it is yet to make a report public.
Bribes were paid out over a period of a decade on behalf of a consortium that was handed contracts worth $6bn to construct liquefied natural gas plants at Bonny Island. The Texas-based US chief executive of the subsidiary concerned, Jack Stanley, faces a potential seven-year jail sentence after pleading guilty to creaming off kickbacks from the bribe money.
US authorities say two Britons played key roles in the bribery scam: Tesler and another British resident, Wojcieh Chodan, who was an executive at Halliburton’s UK subsidiary company MW Kellogg, headquartered in west London. Chodan faces separate extradition proceedings in the new year. Tesler denies any wrongdoing. His case is expected to continue into next month.