The UK’s complex fraud investigation agency lost a court battle on Friday in its attempt to get documents from US engineering firm KBR as part of an international corruption probe into the award of lucrative contracts.
Judges at the UK’s highest court blocked the Serious Fraud Office’s (SFO) attempts to secure information held overseas as part of a sprawling investigation linked to Monaco-based Unaoil, whose senior executives have been convicted of bribery over contracts in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
The SFO opened a bribery and corruption investigation into KBR’s British business, its employees and agents in 2017. It demanded documents held outside the UK from a senior US-based executive during a meeting that year in Britain.
KBR, which employs 28,000 people worldwide with operations in 40 countries, refused. After losing an initial legal challenge in the UK in 2018, the decision was reversed by the Supreme Court on Friday.
The ruling is a blow to the SFO which is charged with conducting some of the most complex fraud and corruption cases, which usually involve alleged wrongdoing that crosses borders or is perpetrated in foreign countries.
"The presumption against extra-territorial effect clearly applies in this case because KBR Inc. is not a UK company, and has never had a registered office or carried on business in the UK," the court said.
The US engineering and procurement giant disclosed in 2016 that it was also under investigation in the US over international projects secured with the assistance of Unaoil.
Three former Unaoil executives have already been jailed in the UK for bribing Iraqi officials to clinch $1.7 billion of oil projects following a five-year inquiry by the SFO.
The investigation focused on how the Ahsani family, who ran Unaoil, secured energy contracts for blue-chip clients in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.
Brothers Cyrus and Saman Ahsani, Unaoil's British-Iranian former chief executive and chief operating officer, respectively, await sentencing in the US after pleading guilty to bribery in 2019.
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Director:Jason Orley
Stars:Jenny Slate, Charlie Day
Rating:4/5
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Ponti
Sharlene Teo, Pan Macmillan
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French business
France has organised a delegation of leading businesses to travel to Syria. The group was led by French shipping giant CMA CGM, which struck a 30-year contract in May with the Syrian government to develop and run Latakia port. Also present were water and waste management company Suez, defence multinational Thales, and Ellipse Group, which is currently looking into rehabilitating Syrian hospitals.
White hydrogen: Naturally occurring hydrogen
Chromite: Hard, metallic mineral containing iron oxide and chromium oxide
Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content
Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land
Olivine: A commonly occurring magnesium iron silicate mineral that derives its name for its olive-green yellow-green colour
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Remaining Fixtures
Wednesday: West Indies v Scotland
Thursday: UAE v Zimbabwe
Friday: Afghanistan v Ireland
Sunday: Final
Top tips to avoid cyber fraud
Microsoft’s ‘hacker-in-chief’ David Weston, creator of the tech company’s Windows Red Team, advises simple steps to help people avoid falling victim to cyber fraud:
1. Always get the latest operating system on your smartphone or desktop, as it will have the latest innovations. An outdated OS can erode away all investments made in securing your device or system.
2. After installing the latest OS version, keep it patched; this means repairing system vulnerabilities which are discovered after the infrastructure components are released in the market. The vast majority of attacks are based on out of date components – there are missing patches.
3. Multi-factor authentication is required. Move away from passwords as fast as possible, particularly for anything financial. Cybercriminals are targeting money through compromising the users’ identity – his username and password. So, get on the next level of security using fingertips or facial recognition.
4. Move your personal as well as professional data to the cloud, which has advanced threat detection mechanisms and analytics to spot any attempt. Even if you are hit by some ransomware, the chances of restoring the stolen data are higher because everything is backed up.
5. Make the right hardware selection and always refresh it. We are in a time where a number of security improvement processes are reliant on new processors and chip sets that come with embedded security features. Buy a new personal computer with a trusted computing module that has fingerprint or biometric cameras as additional measures of protection.
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Sunday's games
All times UAE:
Tottenham Hotspur v Crystal Palace, 4pm
Manchester City v Arsenal, 6.15pm
Everton v Watford, 8.30pm
Chelsea v Manchester United, 8.30pm
How to donate
Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
2289 – Dh10
2252 – Dh 50
6025 – Dh20
6027 – Dh 100
6026 – Dh 200
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