Japanese executive cleared of trying to defraud BP

A JAPANESE executive was yesterday cleared of conspiring to defraud British Petroleum by paying dishonest information brokers for the oil giant's secrets.

Agents acting for a Japanese steel mills company were alleged to have paid for confidential information to win valuable engineering contracts.

Shigiki Furutate, a London-based executive of C Itoh, the Japanese conglomerate, was accused of conspiring to cheat BP's tendering system for work in the North Sea.

Southwark Crown Court was told that corrupt senior BP employees were paid huge backhanders for confidential information. A jury of seven men and five women took a day to find Mr Furutate, 40, of Bromley, Kent, not guilty of three charges of conspiracy to defraud.

He admitted using information offered but denied doing anything dishonest and said he did not know BP employees were being bribed.

The people who sold the secrets after bribing BP chiefs were jailed following a trial earlier this year.

The court was told that the web of corruption involved crooked middlemen who sold secrets to Mr Furutate in return for a 3 per cent commission based on the contract price, which they would share with BP insiders.

'Information consultants' Josef Szrajber and Paolo Sorelli were jailed for three years in April after being found guilty of seven charges of conspiring to defraud BP between June 1988 and August 1990.

Both men were also fined and ordered to pay large sums towards prosecution costs. The court also ordered the confiscation of more than pounds 400,000 from each of them.