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Media: Norway’s Yara transfers $2.6 mln of bribes to EuroChem managers' offshore accounts

Aftenposten reported that ex-head of sales department at EuroChem and former Deputy Director for Sales and Marketing received $1.3 mln in the form of so-called "kickbacks"

© Valeriy Matytsin/TASS

OSLO, April 7. /TASS/. Norwegian fertilizer producer Yara International ASA has transferred $2.6 mln dollars to the offshore accounts of two managers of Russia’s EuroChem between 2004 and 2009, Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reported

Aftenposten participated in the work of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ).

Read also

Russian prosecutors to check reports on Russians with offshore accounts

According to the court documents that were obtained by the newspaper, in 2014 the management of Yara admitted the fact of illegal commission payments to managers of EuroChem, who were in charge of purchase and sale transactions. The sums of those payments are still unknown to the public.

Aftenposten reported that ex-head of sales department at EuroChem Valery Rogalski and former Deputy Director for Sales and Marketing Dmitry Pomytkin received $1.3 mln in the form of so-called "kickbacks". Both managers were dismissed. In 2014, EuroChem sued them in court in Singapore and won the case. According to Forbes, by selling foreign contractors the company's products at low prices, they caused the damage for the sum of $40 mln to the company.

The management of Yara does not deny the information provided by Aftenposten but declined to comment, citing the fact that this information is no longer new.

Yara - one of the world's largest fertilizer producers - was at the center of corruption scandal back in 2011. After years of investigation in 2014 Yara agreed to pay an unprecedented large fine for a total of 295 mln kronor ($35 mln at current exchange rate) to the Norwegian authorities following the proven facts of corruption.

Read also

Yara admitted the fact that its employees spent more than 70 mln kronor ($8.4 mln) on bribes in Libya, India, and Russia. In Russia among the recipients were employees of the Fosagro group.

Now Aftenposten draws attention to the fact that Yara was not fined for bribes it paid to the managers of EuroChem.

On April 3, the International Consortium for Investigative Journalism (ICIJ), based in Washington, DC, unveiled excerpts of 11.5 million documents with the data about the offshore accounts of a number of current and former world leaders. The reports, which became known as "Panama documents" are based on leakage of information from the Panamanian company Mossack Fonseca, which provides legal assistance in offshore registration of companies. The complete archive of the company has not been published. According to head ICIJ Gerard Ryle, the company did not disclose the entire database and is not going to do that.

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