Hello there, welcome to a special edition of MNX's podcast. I'm James Panicki from

Emnex's Asia Pacific team, and we're with you today to walk you through our new special

report on

the conviction in a London court of two UNOIL executives, two of the three managers, who had

faced charges of bribing an Iraqi government official to win lucrative oil contracts.

The outcome of the 10-week trial marks a much-needed victory for the country's serious fraud

office or SFO, which has suffered a number of setbacks over recent years.

Our special report covers the significance of this victory as well as the case itself.

And to discuss the trial, I'm joined now from London by Annie Robertson, an M-Lex reporter covering

anti-bribery and corruption as well as financial crime, and Martin Coyle, M-Lex senior correspondent

reporting on anti-bribery and corruption.

Annie, to start with, there were three UNOIL executives facing charges.

What were the charges and who was ultimately found guilty? The charges surrounding making improper payments to an Iraqi government

official in order to win business contracts within the oil sector. So there were two

executives out of three that were found guilty on some of the counts. They were Zied

Ackle and Stephen Whiteley. Paul Bond was actually, he wasn't acquitted, but the jury were

unable to reach verdicts on all of the counts against him. So the SFO has decided to

pursue a retrial against him only. And Annie, we should point out that this

conviction was announced in fact back in June at the end of June, but we haven't been able to

report on this until now. Is that right? Yes, that is right. We should point out to our US

listeners that there are, in fact, in the UK and many other countries, some reporting restrictions

in place, which explains why there was a delay there. Now, Annie,

...