Transocean: FCPA Case
Transocean agreed to a $7,265,080 civil settlement after the SEC charged that it used customs agents to pay Nigerian officials and keep drilling rigs working. The SEC’s announcement described false import paperwork, improper permit extensions and payments concealed in operating expenses. The rigs could appear to leave and return to Nigeria without actually making the trip.
In its separate deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, Transocean admitted the facts behind those paper movements. The account connects field operations, customs agents, finance staff and senior management. For an employee who knew where a rig actually was, the difference between the operating history and the customs file could be unmistakable.
Keeping a Rig at Work
Transocean supplied offshore drilling equipment and services to oil companies. Its Nigerian operations needed permission to bring rigs into the country’s waters, and the admitted facts explain the commercial choice. Permanent importation carried substantial duties; temporary importation allowed a rig to enter without those duties, subject to a permit, a bond and eventual export.
The temporary permission did not last indefinitely. When the permit and its extensions expired, a company could permanently import the rig or export it and seek a new temporary permit when bringing it back. Moving a rig out of the country could interrupt drilling work that the operator and its customers wanted to continue.
That operational pressure explains what the false documents were meant to accomplish. Transocean admitted that its subsidiaries used customs agents to obtain papers showing exports and re-imports that never happened. The company kept the benefit of temporary status while avoiding the physical movement that supported that status.
Approval Came Through Company Email
The admitted account described an employee proposing a paper export for the Trident VIII when its temporary permit was approaching expiration. A supervising executive supported the proposal. The resulting paperwork showed a departure that did not match the rig’s actual movements.
The same problem arose for the Sedco 709 and Searex XII. An employee asked for permission to create documents depicting the rigs leaving and returning to Nigerian waters, while explaining that moving them physically was unacceptable. The message included a customs agent’s price for obtaining the documents.
A senior executive in Houston approved the paper moves after receiving an explanation that exporting the rigs would interrupt customers’ drilling programs. The communications also went to the regional finance manager in Paris. Those exchanges tied the customs workaround to operational and financial decision-makers outside the local office.
We see more than a false stamp at the border. The company knew the commercial reason it wanted the rigs to stay, obtained a price for paperwork that said otherwise and approved the arrangement through its management chain. An insider familiar with scheduling or the approval messages could explain why the customs file did not describe a real journey.
The Invoice Described Something Else
Transocean admitted that subsidiary employees knew, or were aware of a high probability, that agents were paying bribes to Nigerian customs officials. The agents sought reimbursement through invoices without supporting documents. The subsidiaries paid those bills and recorded the amounts under ordinary operating categories.
The admitted statement identified freight and shipping charges, vessel-hire expenses and miscellaneous operating expenses among the descriptions used. Agent invoices also described clearing bills and inward or outward clearances. The resulting amounts flowed into Transocean’s financial statements.
Those descriptions matter because the employee reviewing a payment might see a familiar customs or logistics expense. Someone closer to the rig’s operations could know that the supposed export never occurred. Connecting the invoice to the rig’s location and the approval correspondence exposes the purpose that the expense category concealed.
The case therefore reaches people in operations and accounting as well as those who dealt directly with customs agents. The operational history establishes what actually moved, and the payment record establishes what the company funded. In the admitted transactions, the mismatch between those accounts was the mechanism.
A Later Rig Move Repeated the Pattern
The agreement describes another paper export and return for a rig in a later period. The documents represented a trip out of Nigeria and back, while the rig had instead moved between offshore drilling locations within Nigerian waters. It eventually left Nigeria, but that later departure did not make the earlier paperwork accurate.
That distinction is useful to anyone who works with movements and permits. A rig can change location without leaving the country, and a genuine later voyage can coexist with an earlier false customs event. The company’s admitted facts separate those movements rather than treating every change in location as an export.
The admitted account attributed approximately $2,129,839 in net profit to the circumvention of temporary-import requirements. The economic benefit came from continuing operations that otherwise would have been suspended for the affected rigs identified in the agreement. The paperwork protected ongoing business, rather than merely speeding a routine administrative step.
Express Clearance Continued After an Internal Warning
Transocean also admitted using a freight forwarder’s express courier service that paid officials to bypass normal customs clearance and duties. An internal investigation included a meeting with the forwarder’s manager, who acknowledged that the service did not comply with Nigerian law. The resulting report recommended stopping its use and went to company personnel, including a senior legal official in Houston.
Management then allowed limited use with advance approval and evidence of duty payment. The admitted facts describe continued use of the service after that policy change, with invoices carrying local processing charges. Those charges were smaller than the customs duties actually owed, and the subsidiaries knew or were aware of a high probability that bribes were being paid.
The sequence joins an internal warning to subsequent transactions. A policy email can show what management said should happen, while the next invoices show what the company continued to purchase. Employees who understood both could identify whether the promised change reached the actual customs process.
Separate Civil and Criminal Records
The SEC’s civil settlement addressed its allegations against Transocean Inc. The criminal agreement separately set out facts accepted by Transocean Inc. and Transocean Ltd. Keeping those records distinct preserves both the civil settlement figure and the company’s own description of the customs arrangements.
The court later dismissed the criminal information. That order records the later step in the deferred prosecution case; the admitted account remains the source for how the paper moves and payments operated. The documents give insiders a concrete connection between a permit, a false trip, an agent’s bill and a management decision.
You Know Where the Rig Was
If customs papers, agent invoices and actual offshore movements tell different stories, contact our whistleblower experts. We help make sense of those connections, develop your strongest case with you and bring in FCPA whistleblower lawyers who understand the business behind the paperwork.
