(Editor’s Note: Updated 27 Mar 2026. The FCPA Blog discontinued in February 2024 after 17 years of publication and has been excluded from the Wayback Machine. It was widely regarded as a key resource for anti-corruption and compliance professionals.)

The London lawyer accused by American authorities of helping KBR and its partners bribe Nigerian officials lost his battle against extradition yesterday.

The British High Court affirmed a decision to send Jeffrey Tesler, 62, a U.K. citizen, to Houston to answer criminal charges in federal court. He faces up to 55 years in prison and forfeiture of more than $132 million.

Tesler was indicted in February 2009. He was charged with one count of conspiracy to violate and ten counts of violating the FCPA. The DOJ alleges he was part of a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials in exchange for contracts worth $6 billion to build liquefied natural gas facilities on Bonny Island, Nigeria.

His co-defendant, Wojciech Chodan, KBR’s former commercial vice president at a U.K. subsidiary, was extradited from Britain in December last year. He pleaded guilty in Houston federal court to conspiring to violate the FCPA.

Chodan’s sentencing is scheduled for February 22, 2011. He faces up to five years in prison on the conspiracy charge. As part of his plea agreement, Chodan, 72, who’s also a U.K. citizen, agreed to forfeit $726,885.

See also: Barry Meier and Clifford Krauss. “Inquiry Puts Halliburton in a Familiar Hot Seat”. NYT Business Day. October 28, 2010.

Last year, for example, Halliburton and KBR agreed to pay $579 million to settle charges brought by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with bribes that KBR had paid to top Nigerian officials over a decade. The companies still face criminal liability in Nigeria over the episode, which involved contracts to build a liquefied natural gas complex.

Richard L. Cassin lived in the Middle East and Asia for 25 years. Before founding Cassin Law LLC, he was a senior partner in a major international law firm and managing partner of its Asia practice in Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing.

He helps clients comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other U.S. laws, and regularly assists companies facing compliance issues.

Richard L. Cassin

Richard L. Cassin is the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of the FCPA Blog. He has been named multiple times as one of the 100 Most Influential People In Business Ethics by Ethisphere Magazine and a Trust Across America 2017 Top Thought Leader in Trust. Cassin‘s articles about corruption and compliance have appeared in leading publications including Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Business Times (Singapore), New England Law Review. His opinions on FCPA enforcement have been cited by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Business Week, Variety, Bloomberg‘s news wire, Reuters, NPR, Fox News, CNN, and others. He was a senior partner in a major international law firm and the head of its Asia practice.

See also: Richard L. Cassin. How do you see the FCPA Blog’s role in the anti-corruption and compliance arena, and has this changed since you founded the blog in 2007? IAC Alumni Magazine.

Our mission is the same today as it was in 2007 – to help anti-corruption professionals and others everywhere understand how corruption happens, what it does to people and institutions, and how anti-corruption laws and compliance programmes work.

As you know, the FCPA is both a regulatory and a criminal statute. Originally, most of the lawyers dealing with it were not criminal lawyers, they were corporate lawyers. So they were very nervous and uncomfortable talking about it.

Therefore we aimed to start an open discussion and dialogue, in plain English and in a more familiar and easy way to understand. The subject matter is expanding; we call it the FCPA Blog but we write about most aspects of white collar crime. We try to publish posts that are clear and concise, and written in an informal way. We don’t want readers to struggle with the material. We know how busy everyone is.

We also strive to present as many points of view as possible. I see the blog as a community bulletin board for the compliance community. So far, we’ve published posts by about 450 different authors representing all facets of the anti-corruption community. That’s the greatest strength of the FCPA Blog.

Richard L. Cassin. How do you see the FCPA Blog’s role in the anti-corruption and compliance arena, and has this changed since you founded the blog in 2007? IAC Alumni Magazine.

See also: Snamprogetti, ENI In $365 Million Settlement

See also: Fracking Resource Guide | Halliburton (updated)

See: Clifford Krauss: propagandist par excellence

See: Halliburton

See: Natural gas: the commodity world’s ugly duckling

See: Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law – washingtonpost.com