Frederick Bourke Convicted in Pirate of Prague Oil Bribery Case

Posted by: Steve LeVine on July 11

Viktor Kozeny — mastermind of an infamous late-1990s scheme to buy Socar, Azerbaijan’s corruption-ridden state oil company — is sitting free in the Bahamas, which refuses to extradite him to the U.S. As O&G readers recall, Fortune magazine dubbed the Czech national “the Pirate of Prague” for his history of dissatisfied investors. In any case, absent the chance to try anyone else central to the scheme, federal prosecutors threw the book at Frederick Bourke, co-founder of handbag maker Dooney & Bourke, who invested $5 million in the deal. Yesterday, a federal jury convicted Bourke for conspiring to pay bribes. The judge said she will sentence him to less than 10 years in prison.

The deal to bribe then-Azerbaijan President Heydar Aliyev went bad, mainly because Socar was never truly for sale; it was a scam. As for guilt, Bourke and a slew of other leading Wall Street investors certainly could be convicted of greed and stupidity – it was obvious to anyone with even passing knowledge of Azerbaijan that Aliyev would never sell even a sliver of Socar, his cash cow.

Blogger Christopher Fountain is having fun at Bourke’s expense, but the lawyers over at Cassin Law, who write the FCPA blog, say Bourke was a victim, not a culprit.