£1.5m bribery and corruption scam at Coca-Cola Enterprises unearthed by procurement diligence

A former manager at Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) has been sentenced for corruption and bribery amounting to £1.5m in inducements.

Noel Corry of Lymm, Cheshire, was sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 21 months, plus 200 hours of unpaid work after pleading guilty to five counts of corruption spanning more than nine years.

As a senior engineering manager responsible for the procurement of electrical services for Coca Cola bottling plants in the UK, Corry accepted bribes in the form of payments, concert and football tickets.

This was in exchange for awarding contracts to companies and individuals he was conspiring with.

Corry was employed by Coca Cola Enterprises UK for 16 years; his offending began in January 2004 and lasted until August 2013 when he was dismissed from the company.

Members of the CCE’s procurement team raised concerns after finding problems with quotes in tenders.

Court papers said: “The close attention of the procurement team did not deter Mr Corry from continuing to provide confidential information.”

One member of the team became suspicious after Boulting initially provided a quote that was much higher than a key competitor, only for it to drop just below the competitor’s figure over the course of a weekend.

The procurement team then alerted CCE’s finance and security departments, and an investigation was launched into Corry’s conduct.

Corry had the power to award general contracts directly or through a tender process, although he was restricted to a limit of £50,000 per contract, above which he needed to seek approval.

However, in 2011, several contracts which had previously been awarded by Corry were made subject to a national tender process run by a newly-appointed indirect procurement team based at CCE's head office.

Previously consultants would run tendering processes but the changes meant the in-house procurement team handled the process.

These changes meant Corry had to actively provide confidential information in relation to the tender process for the larger contracts. It was following these in-house procurement changes that the team became alerted in 2013 to the wrong-doing.

Southwark Crown Court heard the bribes to Corry - from Tritec Systems Lrd, Electron Systems Ltd and WABGS/Boulting Group Ltd - came from a shell company he controlled through family members, Trojan Ltd, Alpha Windows - owned by his brother-in-law - or Axial Partnership Ltd, where he was a partner.

Corry also received hundreds of thousands of pounds as sponsorship or through other payments to Droylsden FC, a football club where he was president.

Corry admitted five counts of corruption and was sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 21 months, plus 200 hours of unpaid work.

Co-defendant Gary Haines of Market Drayton, Shropshire admitted two counts of corruption and was sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 21 months, and 200 hours of unpaid work, whilst a second co-defendant, Peter Kinsella of Manchester, was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 21 months, and 200 hours of unpaid work after pleading guilty to three counts of corruption and three counts of conspiracy to bribe.

WABGS (previously named Boulting Group) admitted failure to prevent bribery and was fined £500,000. Tritec Systems and Electron Systems both pleaded guilty to corruption and failure to prevent bribery and were fined £70,000.

Each company was also ordered to pay £10,000 in costs with each individual ordered to pay £5,000 in costs.

Alistair Dickson of the Crown Prosecution Service said Corry established a "corrupt procurement culture" awarding contracts to companies whose senior managers were prepared to bribe him.

He said Coca Cola Enterprises were "wholly unaware" of Corry's corruption but added: "The contracting companies should have had in place compliance measures which would have prevented the payments.”.