The Billion Dollar Man

Jack Stanley: The most important cooperating witness in FCPA history. There’s never been a cooperating witness in FCPA history quite like him. A former corporate top gun, a global player, a captain of industry who once led the dark side and now sits with the prosecution, helping nail industry giants and along the way putting more than a billion dollars — a billion dollars — into the U.S. Treasury.

Make that $1.28 billion and counting. That’s how much the DOJ and SEC have recovered in penalties and disgorgement so far from the TSKJ consortium members: $579 million from KBR / Halliburton, $365 million from Snamprogetti / ENI, and $338 million from Technip, with more to come from the final JV partner, JGC.

The man who helped make it all possible is Albert “Jack” Stanley. He was chairman and CEO of KBR and headed the TSKJ consortium. For ten years starting in 1995, he organized about $180 million in bribes to Nigerian leaders in return for $6 billion in contracts.

But in 2008 his life came crashing down. After pleading guilty to conspiring to violate the FCPA, he was sentenced to seven years in prison. That sentence, however, is subject to court review based on his cooperation in related prosecutions. Is he cooperating? Big time.

He knows dates, places, times, amounts, and names. He knows offshore companies and bank accounts, circuitous money flows, and black-bag exchanges. He’s free on bail and he’s talking. As each TSKJ member falls before the DOJ and SEC, the details of what they did pile up, and Stanley’s shadow is always there.

So how much of his seven-year sentence will the 66-year-old Stanley serve? Our guess is not much. He is, after all, the billion dollar man.