Up to 25 Years For Maryland Man Convicted of FCPA Violations

Mark Lambert, former president of Maryland transportation company Transportation Logistics Inc. (TLI) was convicted Nov. 22 of bribing a Russian official in exchange for contracts to deliver nuclear materials to customers in the U.S. The uranium came from a program the United States started with Russia in 1993 to remove unsecured nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union in exchange for cash. Prosecutors said Lambert bribed an official at JSC Techsnabexport (Tenex), a subsidiary of Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation, in exchange for contracts for TLI. Tenex, based in Moscow, is the sole supplier and exporter of Russian uranium and uranium enrichment services to nuclear power companies worldwide. TLI wired payments for phony invoices from bank accounts in Maryland to shell companies his co-conspirators controlled in Latvia, Cyprus, and Switzerland. The Russian official who took the bribes pleaded guilty in 2015 to a money laundering conspiracy. Lambert was found guilty on four counts of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, two counts of wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy to violate those statutes. He will be sentenced in March and faces up to 25 years in prison.