Ex-AG&P chairman released on $4.4-M bail

MANILA, Philippines – Joseph Sigelman, ex-chairman of Philippine company Atlantic, Gulf & Pacific Co. of Manila Inc. and of British Virgin Islands-based PetroTiger Ltd., was released on a US$4.4-million bail after the US charged him and two associates with bribing the Columbian state-controlled oil company Ecopetrol SA.

According to Businessweek, Sigelman, along with former PetroTiger co-CEO Knut Hammarskjold and former general counsel Gregory Weisman, gave the payments through the wife of an Ecopetrol official.

A Bloomberg report said the US charged the trio with using the bribes to earn a $39.6-million oil service contract.

Sigelman appeared before a federal court in New Jersey on January 8 after flying in from Guam. Sigelman was arrested in the Philippines on January 3.

Kickback scheme

Prosecutors also charged them with a separate kickback scheme. The scheme involved buying another company on behalf of PetroTiger and several of its directors.

The defendants raised the purchase price of the company, while the owners of the target company kicked back a portion of the higher amount, sending the payments into a Philippine bank account of Sigelman’s.

Part of the scheme involved side letters which justified the payments, calling those payments the “Manila Split,” according to complaints.

Sigelman was a chairman of construction company AG&P until January 7, when he resigned. Businessman Cesar Buenaventura has taken over as chairman of AG&P.

Sigelman’s bail package includes a provision that he must stay in the home of his parents in Long Island, New York. – Rappler.com

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