Lithuanian prosecutors launch investigationOn Tuesday, Lithuania's Prosecutor General's Office launched a pre-trial investigation into alleged corruption and misuse of power at the country's Ignalina nuclear power plant.
The investigation followed a US court order earlier this week and reports that US company Data Systems & Solutions had paid bribes to the plant's officials to receive orders.Special Investigation ServiceSpecial Investigation ServiceSpecial Investigation ServiceSpecial Investigation Service
“Data Systems & Solutions paid bribes to an official employed by the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant to secure contracts to perform services for the plant. To disguise the scheme, the bribes were funneled through several subcontractors located in the United States and abroad. The subcontractors, in turn, made repeated payments to high-level officials at Ignalina via check or wire transfers,” the US Justice Department said in a statement.
According to the documents filed to court, in 1999-2004 Data Systems & Solutions won several orders worth between 1.3 million US dollars and 13 million euros at the INPP. To secure the contracts, Data Systems & Solutions, which works in design, installation and maintenance of instrumentation and control systems at nuclear power plants, fossil fuel power plants, and other critical infrastructure facilities, paid bribes to the then CEO of INPP, the head of the Instrumentation and Controls Department at the INPP and his deputy, the head of INPP International Projects Department and the lead software engineer.
In 1999-2002 Data Systems & Solutions reportedly paid 50,000 US dollars to the then head of INPP Instrumentation and Controls Department, 30,000 US dollars to his deputy, 44,000 US dollars to the head of International Projects Department, and 16,000 US dollars to the lead software engineer via check and wire transfers through intermediaries.
Moreover, in 2003-2004 it transferred 246,800 US dollars to one of its subcontractors for payments to the INPP officials.
In December 2000, Data Systems & Solutions paid for the vacation of the head of INPP Instrumentation and Controls Department in Florida, and in October 2002, for the vacation of INPP CEO and the head of INPP Instrumentation and Controls Department in Hawaii. In January 2004, it presented a 2,700 US dollars worth Cartier watch to INPP CEO.
INPP was headed by Viktor Shevaldin in 1991-2010.
Virginia-based Data Systems & Solutions was charged with conspiring to violate and violating anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The company agreed to pay an 8.82 million US dollars fine and the Justice Department agreed to defer prosecution for two years and then drop the charges if the company implements internal controls.
Lithuanian prosecutors launch investigation
On Tuesday, Lithuania's Prosecutor General's Office launched a pre-trial investigation into alleged corruption and misuse of power at the country's Ignalina nuclear power plant.
The investigation followed a US court order earlier this week and reports that US company Data Systems & Solutions had paid bribes to the plant's officials to receive orders.
Vilnius Regional Prosecutor's Office launched a pre-trial investigation into alleged misuse of powers at the Ignalina facility. The Special Investigation Service was ordered to carry out the investigation.
The investigation was started following a request by the nuclear plant's subsequent administration regarding allegedly non-transparent and ineffective use of funds for the facility's decommissioning in 2003-2009.
Ignalina plant leadership to order internal probe
The chief executive officer of Lithuania's Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) plans to order an internal investigation after the US Justice Department said that Data Systems & Solutions, a US company, had paid bribes to the plant's officials.
"The information that became public today came as a surprise to us as well and the facts that are being provided worry us. We'll definitely initiate an internal investigation and go through the records in order to assess the actions of our employees, if these facts did take place and if they are still working at the plant," Žilvinas Jurkšus told Lithuanian Radio.
"To go to the Prosecutor General's Office, we need arguments and facts. Until we have analyzed that material, it's difficult to say today if we'll turn (to the prosecutors). Possibly, the statute of limitations has run out. We don't know yet what amounts and values we are talking about," he said.
The internal investigation should reveal what employees of the plant could have taken bribes and of what sizes, the CEO said.
To his knowledge, the last time Data Systems & Solutions worked at the Ignalina plant was in 2003.
Multi-million contracts
Data Systems & Solutions (DS&S), a US firm charged with paying bribes to senior executives of Lithuania's Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP), carried out five projects worth millions of US dollars at the facility between 1999 and 2006.
These included an 11.535-million-dollar project for upgrading the plant's information technology system TITANAs and a 1.147 million-dollar nuclear safety parameters system project, Daiva Rimašauskaitė, INPP spokeswoman, told BNS on Tuesday.
DS&S also developed and installed a diverse shutdown system at Unit Two for 13.527 million euros, installed an external radiation monitoring system for 2.175 million dollars and a Gorbach internal radiation monitoring system for 4.482 million dollars.
