Posted on September 30, 2024
Last week, the Amsterdam District Court handed down judgment in whistleblower Jonathan Taylor’s case against SBM Offshore. This is the culmination of a decade of trials and fines for the Monaco-based floating production company, after its former in-house lawyer Mr Taylor blew the whistle to the authorities in the United States on US$240 million of bribes paid by the company across West Africa and Brazil over many years.
For this malfeasance, SBM Offshore was fined a total of over US$820 million in the Netherlands, the US, and Brazil. A number of former executives, including two of its former CEOs, were sentenced to prison for their involvement in the corruption.
The pain and power of a whistleblower
Unfortunately, SBM Offshore gave him the classic treatment that unfortunately affects many whistleblowers – as we have covered. SBM Offshore did everything it could to silence Mr Taylor and undermine his credibility.
The company even filed charges against him for attempted extortion. The judge in Monaco ruled in 2022 that Taylor was not guilty of that claim, but only after he had been detained in Croatia under an Interpol red notice, rendering him unable to leave the country for many months.
The Amsterdam District Court has now ruled that SBM Offshore went too far in its public statements about him. SBM Offshore acted unlawfully because its director Sietze Hepkema, among others, named the charges against Mr Taylor in an interview with Dutch business newspaper NRC.
Now the Dutch court has determined that Mr Taylor is entitled to damages from SBM. The amount has yet to be determined by the District Court.
The Court has already determined in this interlocutory judgment that SBM Offshore must publish a rectification. The final judgment will determine exactly what that rectification will look like. That final judgment is expected early 2025.
