The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) announced on Tuesday 24 March that it has completed an investigation into fraud against the EU budget during the implementation of a Rule of law project financed in Syria.
OLAF has recommended to the national authorities of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium to initiate legal proceedings against the project partners in question.
“The European Union budget finances a wide range of programmes and projects which improve the lives of citizens across the EU and beyond, but fraudsters sometimes also target these funds”, notes an OLAF press release.
OLAF explained that it had received information suggesting that a UK-based company and its partners in the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates “might have been engaging in fraud against the EU budget” in relation to a ‘Rule of law’ project funded in Syria.
OLAF established that the UK company and its partners had concluded a contract with the EU to support possible prosecutions for violations of international criminal and humanitarian law in Syria. The total value of this contract was 1.99 million euros.
OLAF's investigation revealed that while the partnership claimed to be supporting the Rule of law, the partners were actually committing widespread violations themselves, including “submission of false documents, irregular invoicing, and profiteering”, OLAF said.
In January 2020, the Director General of OLAF closed the case, making judicial recommendations to the relevant national authorities in the countries where the partner’s offices were located (United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium).
Further recommendations were made to the European Commission to recover 1.89 million euros and to flag the partners in question in the Commission’s ‘Early Detection and Exclusion System’ database (EDES), which aims to strengthen the protection of the Union’s financial interests and ensure sound financial management. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)