A former employee of maritime services group SBM Offshore claims the company paid out over $250m in bribes to officials and companies in various countries between 2005 and 2011.

Business magazine Quote says the information about the bribes comes from an internal company document and that SBM Offshore claims it was stolen by an ex-employee ‘who wanted to blackmail us’.

The former worker was claiming €3m from the company, which it refused to pay. The information, which has been placed online, ‘was obtained illegally’ and ‘does not represent the facts’, the company said.

Investigations currently underway by the US and Dutch authorities prevent any further comment, the spokesman told Quote. SBM Offshore also said during the presentation of its 2013 figures on Thursday that it was involved in a bribery investigation in three countries.

Africa

The document, which can be found on an old wikipedia page, speaks of bribing officials in Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil, Malaysia, Iraq, Kazakstan and Italy.

It also includes partial transcriptions of conversations which show members of both the management and supervisory boards were aware of what was going on, Quote states.

There are also several references to a JPL, thought to be former COO Jean-Philippe Laures, who was sacked last year. SBM said at the time his departure was not connected with ‘operational developments’ but made no further comment, the Financieele Dagblad reports.