Former CEO of Norway's Yara Int'l company charged with corruption

The former chief executive officer of Norway's fertilizer firm Yara International, Thorleif Enger, was charged on Wednesday with two counts of gross corruption in India and Libya.

The Norwegian economic crime investigation agency Okokrim charged that Enger bribed the sons of a former oil minister in Libya and an official in India, reported the Norwegian business daily Dagens Naeringsliv.

However, Enger denied the charge against him.

Earlier in the day, the Yara International was ordered to pay a fine of295 million Norwegian kroner (about 48 million U.S. dollars) for three gross corruption cases abroad.

In a statement, the company accepted fine for bribery in Libya, India and Russia.

After a prolonged investigation, the Norwegian anti-corruption agency Okokrim has come to the conclusion that a large sum of bribe money was paid by Yara International over a period from 2004 and 2009 to senior officials in Libya and India and suppliers in Russia, according to the NTB report.

The illegal transfers totalled about 12 million U.S. dollars, concluded the Okokrim, which stands for the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime .

The fine is for irregularities linked to the establishment of Lifeco in Libya and an unrealized project in India and Yara's activities in Switzerland while the confiscation is related to earlier phosphate deliveries, said the company.

Headquartered in Oslo, capital of Norway and with presence in more than 50 countries, Yara International is one of the world's largest fertilizer producer, with a revenue of 84.5 billion Norwegian kroner (13.76 billion U.S. dollars at the current exchange rate) in 2012 from sales in the global market.