The director of a major UK reinsurance company was jailed at Southwark Crown Court for his role in the payment of more than US $2million of bribes in Costa Rica.
The case follows a complex investigation by the City of London Police’s Overseas Anti-Corruption Unit (OACU), in conjunction with the SFO. The case was the first OACU investigated, and is the unit’s first conviction of a British businessman.<br><br>Julian Messent, 50, from Beaconsfield, Bucks, pleaded guilty to two counts of making corrupt payments between February 1999 and June 2002, contrary to s1(1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906. He asked for a further 39 similar offences to be taken into consideration. He was jailed for 21 months, ordered to pay £100,000 in compensation to the Costa Rican government and disqualified from acting as a company director for five years.<br><br>The charges relate to payments made to senior employees of the Costa Rican state insurance company, Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS) and the national electricity and telecommunications provider Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE).<br><br>The payments were made in a bid to ensure that PWS International Ltd, for whom Messent was director and head of the Americas property division, secured and retained lucrative contracts.