Former JPMC CEO sentenced

Amman — Former CEO of the Jordan Phosphate Mines Co. (JPMC) Walid Kurdi has been sentenced in absentia by the Amman Criminal Court on two charges. In the first case he was given 22 and half years of hard labor and $357 million in fines and in the second case 15 years of hard labor and $43.7 million in fines. Kurdi, who is an uncle of Jordan’s King Abdullah, reportedly fled to England earlier this year. The Jordanian government said it has issued an international arrest warrant. Jordanian media reports said that he refuses to return unless prosecutors from Jordan’s Anti-Corruption Commission drop the case against him. He also was said to have offered $700 million to settle the case out of court. The Anti-Corruption Commission had previously frozen his assets in connection with fraudulent marketing and shipping deals JPMC signed with foreign firms. The commission’s investigation showed that following the 2006 privatization of the company JPMC signed shipping contracts with a foreign company at substantially higher rates than prevailed in the market at the time. The commission estimated the difference in the contracts between 2008 and 2011 at more than $40 million. The investigation uncovered that the Aqaba Development and Marine Services company with which JPMC signed a deal to ship 250,000 mt of phosphates to Turkey in 2010, was owned by Kurdi and family members. The marine company also held about 70 percent of the contracts signed by JMPC for phosphate shipments from Aqaba port.