top of page
Writer's pictureTERRA SS

Exposure of Bribery During Arbitration

About the rubric: In series of publications we tell you more about diferent cases we worked on in our practice. The aim is to show the nature of our work, how we solved complicated issues and how we manage crises protecting the interests of our clients. We respect the privacy of those who trust us which is why we will not mention brands and names in tese publications.


Our client, a medium-sized French company, was assisting a multibillion-dollar Chinese firm penetrate the French market. After a couple of years, the Chinese company decided to cancel the contract, claiming that the French company violated a material clause.


This led to a series of lawsuits between the two parties, whereby the Chinese company sought damages of over €500M.


During the arbitration process in the case, our client suspected that the judge ruled for several unbalanced resolutions. This is what motivated him to hire our firm to find evidentiary support.


Our team first approached the task through deep social media research which ultimately unearthed a social relationship between the CEO of the Chinese company and the arbitrator.

Following these findings, one of our undercover agents contacted the CEO’s cousin (whom was previously his business partner) posing as a friendly, young, clever and attractive woman.

Our agent became close with the cousin, spent time with him, and gained his trust. After a few meetings, the cousin bragged to our agent that the CEO managed to bribe the arbitrator thanks to his close friendship with him.


Our agent saw an opportunity to excel the operation and asked the cousin if he could help her dad in a case he was involved in by going to the same arbitrator. The cousin agreed and set up the meeting.


During the meeting between our agent and the arbitrator, the arbitrator stated that if needed, he can guarantee a favorable outcome to a given party.


All meetings had been recorded and were later used as evidence in court, resulting in a drastic change in balance of power in the case – in our client’s favor.


Our client swiftly filed several lawsuits against the Chinese company, the CEO and the arbitrator, resulting in a fast compromise in their favor.

Comments


bottom of page