Two senior Mobil managers have been accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from an allegedly corrupt service station owner.
At the High Court in Auckland today, Mark Courtney, Keith Child and Sunil Bansal charged with conspiring to defraud Mobil between 1994 and 1997 by using false invoices, rental review and retail supply agreements.
Courtney was also charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice and two counts of using a document to defraud.
The three men have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) alleged that Courtney and Child received payments from Bansal for allowing him to run six Mobil service stations, contrary to the oil company's policy.
SFO prosecutor, Rhys Harrison, QC, told the court that Mobil paid new dealers an upfront "compensation payment" for agreeing to sell its petroleum for a certain number of years.
The company had a policy prohibiting a dealer, except in rare circumstances, to operate more than one station.
Courtney and Child allegedly concealed Bansal's identity from Mobil head office in order to get him into a total of six service stations.
Mr Harrison said that the compensation payments were substantial - in one case $800,000.
He said that false invoices were submitted as a means of distributing the compensation payments and other payments from Mobil among themselves.
"False invoices would be the key to unlocking the spoils of crime," said Mr Harrison.
He said that Bansal, considered a persona non grata at Mobil, ended up with a number of service stations he was not entitled to at virtually no cost and also got large compensation payments.
Mr Harrison said that Bansal admitted receiving $1.45 million, Courtney $250,000 and Child $180,000.
The SFO investigation was launched after Courtney and Child tried to deposit $70,000 cash into their personal bank accounts, raising the suspicion of bank staff.
Fraud scheme alleged
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