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Fresh Allegations Emerge in RICO Lawsuit Against Alcoa

by Courtesy

Fresh Allegations Emerge in RICO Lawsuit Against Alcoa
By Joe Palazzolo – 29 December, 2011 – WSJ Law Blog

Aluminum maker Alcoa allegedly paid $5 million in bribes to the former chief executive of Bahrain’s state-owned aluminum company and tens of millions of dollars in bribes to a former Bahrain official as part of scheme to land contracts at inflated prices, according to a new court filing in a long-running racketeering lawsuit.

Documents filed late Wednesday in federal court in Pittsburgh also allege that Alcoa allowed shell companies owned by Canadian businessman Victor Dahdaleh to masquerade as Alcoa subsidiaries.

That way Alcoa could sell alumina, an ingredient used to make aluminum, to the shell companies at inflated prices. The shell companies, in turn, sold the overpriced alumina to the state-owned company, Aluminum Bahrain, which was apparently none the wiser, according to the documents.

Alcoa also used the shell companies to funnel bribes to Aluminum Bahrain executives and Bahrain government officials, in return for helping secure the contracts at the inflated prices, including by providing competing bid information to Dahdaleh, the documents allege.

The latest documents are part of a recently revived lawsuit filed in 2008 by Aluminum Bahrain, also known as Alba. They offer the most detailed description to date of the alleged scheme, through which Alcoa reaped $400 million in illegal profits, according to Alba.

In the lawsuit, Alba accuses Alcoa of massively overcharging it for thousands of tons of alumina over a period of about 20 years. Alba, which filed an amended complaint in the case in November, is seeking more than $1 billion in damages from Alcoa.

“We have consistently said that the claims in this case are not supported by the facts and nothing in the RICO statement changes our view,” an Alcoa spokesman said, referring to legal name for the court documents filed Wednesday. He added that the company would be filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in January. …source