Keppel Offshore & Marine, the marine arm of one of Singapore's most storied conglomerates, paid approximately US$55 million in bribes over more than a decade to win 13 contracts with Brazil's state oil company Petrobras and another Brazilian entity, Sete Brasil, in a case linked to Brazil's sprawling Operation Car Wash scandal. The scheme ran from at least 2001 to 2014, with the bribes disguised as outsized commissions to an intermediary under the guise of legitimate consulting agreements, then funnelled through shell companies to Brazilian officials and the country's then-governing political party.
The payments were orchestrated through the company's former agent in Brazil, Zwi Skornicki, and according to US prosecutors, Keppel earned about US$351.8 million from the tainted contracts. The case came to a head in December 2017, when Keppel Offshore & Marine and its US subsidiary agreed to pay US$422 million in a first-of-its-kind global settlement with authorities in the United States, Brazil and Singapore. Keppel Offshore & Marine USA pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to violating America's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, while its Singapore parent entered a deferred prosecution agreement. In Singapore, the company accepted a conditional warning from the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau.
The financial hit was severe: Keppel reported a S$379 million fourth-quarter loss in 2017, its first quarterly loss since it began quarterly reporting in 2003, after a S$619 million one-off charge for the penalties. At the results briefing, then-CEO Loh Chin Hua called it a painful chapter the company had recognised and dealt firmly with, insisting that integrity was a core value and that Keppel would not tolerate deviations from it. Six former senior executives were named in US court documents.
Singapore's own investigations moved slowly. It was not until 2023 that the CPIB closed its probe, issuing stern warnings to six former senior management staff rather than pressing charges, citing the difficulty of obtaining evidence scattered across multiple jurisdictions and witnesses who could not be compelled to testify in Singapore. Keppel later paid a further US$65 million to settle remaining matters with Brazilian authorities. The case remains one of the largest corporate bribery settlements involving a Singapore company, and a lasting stain on a group long regarded as a pillar of the establishment.
The human cost of the scheme was not confined to the corporate entity. In August 2017, a former senior member of Keppel Offshore & Marine's legal department pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of New York to one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, becoming the first individual to face criminal consequences in the case. The US$422 million penalty was split three ways, with Brazil receiving about US$211 million, half the total, and Singapore up to US$105.6 million, a quarter, with the United States crediting amounts paid to the other jurisdictions. Keppel received a 25 percent reduction off the bottom of the US sentencing guidelines range in recognition of its substantial cooperation and extensive remedial measures, which included terminating and disciplining employees involved and overhauling its compliance and internal controls. The company insisted the resolution brought closure, but for years afterward the case was invoked whenever questions arose about governance standards at Singapore's government-linked companies.