A former executive at Monaco and gas consultancy Unaoil was sentenced in London to three years and four months in jail on Thursday for bribing Iraqi officials to clinch $1.7 billion of oil projects.
Basil Al Jarah, Unaoil's former Iraq manager, admitted to paying $17 million in bribes to secure contracts to build pipelines, an oil platform and offshore mooring buoys in the Arabian Gulf, as the war-torn nation tries to shore up its battered economy.
It is the third sentence by a London judge after a five-year inquiry by the Serious Fraud Office and the US into how the Ahsani family, who ran Unaoil, secured energy contracts for blue-chip clients in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.
Former Unaoil managers Stephen Whiteley, 55, and Ziad Akle, 45, had already been sentenced to three and five years in jail after a London trial.
"This was a classic case of corruption, where powerful men took advantage of the desperation and vulnerability of others to line their own pockets," fraud office head Lisa Osofsky said.
John Milner, Al Jarah's lawyer, said he was disappointed the court had not agreed to a suspended sentence.
Mr Milner said the court chose to ignore the owners of Unaoil who were "unlikely to share Mr Al Jarah's fate".
The investigation originally centred on the Ahsanis.
But failed extradition attempts ended in a clash in Italy with US prosecutors over the extradition of Saman Ahsani in 2018, foiling the agency's attempts to prosecute them in Britain.
British prosecutors said Iraqi-born Al Jarah, 71, British-Lebanese Akle and Whiteley, who is British, conspired with others to bribe public officials at Iraq's South Oil Company and, in Al Jarah's case, the Iraqi Ministry of Oil.
Akle and Whiteley denied wrongdoing. Al Jarah pleaded guilty to five offences in 2019 and asked for further offences to be taken into consideration at his sentencing on Thursday.
Whiteley and Akle, who were found guilty of conspiring to pay more than $500,000 in bribes to win a $55m oil contract, plan to appeal against their convictions, their lawyers say.
Paul Bond, 68, a former sales manager for then Unaoil client SBM Offshore, faces a retrial in January after the jury could not reach a verdict.
Brothers Cyrus and Saman Ahsani, Unaoil's British-Iranian former chief executive and chief operating officer, await sentencing in the US after pleading guilty to bribery in 2019.
Their father, Ata Ahsani, has not been prosecuted.
Ten tax points to be aware of in 2026
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
Businesses should continue preparing for the implementation of e-invoicing in the UAE, with 2026 a preparation and transition period ahead of phased mandatory adoption.
3. More tax audits
Tax authorities are increasingly using data already available across multiple filings to identify audit risks.
4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
5. Greater emphasis on statutory audit
There is a greater need for the accuracy of financial statements. The International Financial Reporting Standards standards need to be strictly adhered to and, as a result, the quality of the audits will need to increase.
6. Further transfer pricing enforcement
Transfer pricing enforcement, which refers to the practice of establishing prices for internal transactions between related entities, is expected to broaden in scope. The UAE will shortly open the possibility to negotiate advance pricing agreements, or essentially rulings for transfer pricing purposes.
7. Limited time periods for audits
Recent amendments also introduce a default five-year limitation period for tax audits and assessments, subject to specific statutory exceptions. While the standard audit and assessment period is five years, this may be extended to up to 15 years in cases involving fraud or tax evasion.
8. Pillar 2 implementation
Many multinational groups will begin to feel the practical effect of the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT), the UAE's implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax under Pillar 2. While the rules apply for financial years starting on or after January 1, 2025, it is 2026 that marks the transition to an operational phase.
9. Reduced compliance obligations for imported goods and services
Businesses that apply the reverse-charge mechanism for VAT purposes in the UAE may benefit from reduced compliance obligations.
10. Substance and CbC reporting focus
Tax authorities are expected to continue strengthening the enforcement of economic substance and Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting frameworks. In the UAE, these regimes are increasingly being used as risk-assessment tools, providing tax authorities with a comprehensive view of multinational groups’ global footprints and enabling them to assess whether profits are aligned with real economic activity.
Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
How being social media savvy can improve your well being
Next time when procastinating online remember that you can save thousands on paying for a personal trainer and a gym membership simply by watching YouTube videos and keeping up with the latest health tips and trends.
As social media apps are becoming more and more consumed by health experts and nutritionists who are using it to awareness and encourage patients to engage in physical activity.
Elizabeth Watson, a personal trainer from Stay Fit gym in Abu Dhabi suggests that “individuals can use social media as a means of keeping fit, there are a lot of great exercises you can do and train from experts at home just by watching videos on YouTube”.
Norlyn Torrena, a clinical nutritionist from Burjeel Hospital advises her clients to be more technologically active “most of my clients are so engaged with their phones that I advise them to download applications that offer health related services”.
Torrena said that “most people believe that dieting and keeping fit is boring”.
However, by using social media apps keeping fit means that people are “modern and are kept up to date with the latest heath tips and trends”.
“It can be a guide to a healthy lifestyle and exercise if used in the correct way, so I really encourage my clients to download health applications” said Mrs Torrena.
People can also connect with each other and exchange “tips and notes, it’s extremely healthy and fun”.
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Generation Start-up: Awok company profile
Started: 2013
Founder: Ulugbek Yuldashev
Sector: e-commerce
Size: 600 plus
Stage: still in talks with VCs
Principal Investors: self-financed by founder
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
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