Indictments were filed Thursday morning in the Tel Aviv District Court – Economic Department, as part of plea bargains signed with four senior officials in the Shikun & Binui Group – Moshe Lachmani, Ofer Kotler, Roni Ploch and Dan Shaham.
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The Shikun & Binui affair concerns events that took place within the framework of the group's international activities after Amendment 99 of the Penal Code came into force in July 2008, which prohibits bribery of a foreign public official. According to the indictments filed, even before the amendment went into effect, some of the companies in the group and their various organs made payments, some of which were improper, to various entities in the countries in which they operated, without receipts. These unlawful payments, and the profits resulting from them, were included and embedded in the Group's accounting books.
The indictment filed against Ofer Kotler, who served as CEO of Shikun & Binui and chairman of the subsidiaries SBI Infrastructure and SBI Switzerland from mid-2008 to the end of 2015, Roni Ploch, who served as CEO of the subsidiaries SBI Infrastructure and SBI Switzerland from late 2011 to early 2018, and Dan Shaham, who served as CEO of the Kenya branch of SBI Switzerland between 2017 and 2013, indicates that the defendants conspired with various organs of the companies in order not to stop the provision of payments by the subsidiaries of SBI Switzerland and branches in the countries of activity, although these are payments, some of which are illegal. The volume of payments reached considerable sums, which gave companies significant economic benefit.
Shikun & Binui Ministries, photo: Archive photo: Yehoshua Yosef
For these acts, the indictments attribute to Kotler, Floch and Shaham the offense of conspiracy to commit a crime under the Penal Code. Floch was also charged with the offense of prohibiting the operation of property originating in the offense (section 4 of the Prohibition of Money Laundering Law), after he acted to unlawfully incorporate the payments into its expenses and legitimate income, in the accounting system and financial statements of SBI Switzerland, as it was prior to Amendment 99 of the Penal Code.
The indictment filed against Moshe Lachmani indicates that when he assumed the position of chairman of the company's board of directors in July 2012, it was brought to his attention that the payments had not been stopped, some of which were illegal. Although Lachmani ordered the promotion of a code of ethics and an enforcement plan, he did not take measures to immediately ensure the cessation of payments, which continued to yield profits to the company. In light of the Group's structure, Shikun & Binui consolidated into its financial statements, which were published to the public, the financial statements of SBI Infrastructure and SBI Switzerland, which included illegal payments made without receipts or documents, alongside annotations that included the declaration that "payment of expenses in the above format does not constitute material exposure to the Group companies."
Moshe Lachmani - Shikun & Binui, Photo: Sivan Faraj
Lachmani and Kotler did not act in accordance with the obligations imposed on them under the Securities Law (Section 36) by allowing the publication of the reports even though they were aware that the Shikun & Binui reports include the aforementioned annotation and statement, which ignores possible implications for the companies' businesses. The two were charged with an offense under the Securities Law (section 53(b)(5A) together with 53(e)(2)).
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