Sydney Morning Herald correspondent Nick McKenzie reports that David Savage, former CEO of the Australian infrastructure giant Leighton Holdings, pled guilty January 30 to covering up the payment of $45 million to corrupt Iraqi politicians (here).

The fine: AUD $1000. About $700 in U.S. dollars.

The possibly record setting fine didn’t escape Australian anticorruption activists’ notice. McKenzie quotes Clancy Moore of Transparency International:

This minuscule fine for a huge multimillion dollar bribery scandal is embarrassing and sends the wrong message to Australian businesses working in high-risk industries like infrastructure and mining,”

The story is behind a paywall. For those without an SMH subscription some especially damning facts include —

• In contrast to Savage’s AD $1000 penalty, an Iraqi middleman who helped distribute some of the $45 million (USD) Leighton Holdings paid to secure a $billion oil pipeline project was jailed in the UK in late 2020 for three years and four months for his corrupt dealings.
• In 2023, another corrupt fixer used by Leighton to pay bribes, Monaco businessman Saman Ahsani, was sentenced to 12 months in a US prison and ordered to forfeit $2 million for his role in the scandal.

As a party to the OECD Antibribery Convention, Australia committed to punishing foreign bribery “by effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal penalties” and where company executives are involved, the punishment should “include deprivation of liberty.” Perhaps its record setting effort merits discussion at the next meeting of the OECD Working Group on Bribery, the body responsible for ensuring compliance with the Convention.