Iranian Company Wins $87mln Fraud Claim over Oil Rig Deal

Acourt in London handed a victory to an Iranian oil and gas engineering company on Friday, accepting its claim that it was a victim of a fraud in a 87-mln-dollar oil rig deal.

"Three main suspects of this case, including Reza Tabatabayee, Morad Shirani and Ali Taheri Motlaq, the former managing-director of the Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Co, were sentenced to pay $87mln to the IOEC based on the court's ruling," an informed source told FNA on Saturday.

Based on the ruling, the lawyers of the IOEC can seize the assets of the three convicts or call for their arrest anywhere.

Also, the ruling is final and may not be raised again in an appeal court.

In 2011, sanctions made it difficult for Tehran to rent oil drilling rigs, so the IOEC approached Tabatabayee and asked him to find one to buy, both he and state media said.

Tabatabayee, a veteran trader of oil industry equipment in the Persian Gulf, said he found a rig owned by Romanian company Grup Servicii Petroliere SA (GSP) but because of sanctions on the IOEC, the deal had to be routed through a trading company registered in Turkey.

GSP Communications Director Radu Petrescu said the company did not know Tabatabayee. “His accusations are absurd,” he said, adding, “The information from this so-called broker is not true.” He said at the time that GSP had had two oil rigs in Iran in the past and would return to Iran if sanctions are lifted.

Tabatabayee said the rig cost $67 million but the IOEC approved a payment of $87 million on the grounds that the extra was needed to bypass the sanctions.

Even though the rig was never delivered to Iran, Tehran ended up paying out all of the $87 million, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh was quoted by his ministry’s news agency Shana as saying.

Some Iranian media reports have said the rig is now operating in Mexico.

Morad Shirani, an adviser to the IOEC, was arrested in Tehran in 2015 as part of a judicial investigation into possible corruption related to the deal.

Tehran’s Prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, announced on August 7, 2017, that the indictment against six unidentified persons accused in the “missing oil rigs’” case has been issued.

“The case of the missing oil rigs that has been a top headline for the past two years is one of the most serious cases of financial crimes filed in the Justice department,” Dolatabadi asserted, adding, “We have asked the court to try and punish the suspects related to the case.”

source: FARS NEWS AGENCY