LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) on Wednesday arrested three people as part of an international bribery investigation into British infrastructure provider Blu-3 and former associates of global construction company Mace Group.
An SFO statement said that more than 70 of its staff searched four homes and one commercial property in Britain and Monaco authorities searched another suspect’s premises.
The SFO said that individuals at Blu-3 were suspected of paying more than 3 million pounds ($3.99 million) in bribes to former associates of Mace Group relating to the construction of a data centre in the Netherlands for Microsoft.
“Mace has a zero tolerance approach to breaches of our code of ethics and takes any allegations of bribery extremely seriously,” a Mace Group spokesperson said.
“We are committed to fully supporting the Serious Fraud Office in investigating allegations against any former associates of the group.”
Blu-3 did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The three suspects were arrested for questioning, the SFO said.
“Paying bribes to do business undermines our financial markets, the reputation of British companies and the rule of law and will not be tolerated,” said SFO Director Nick Ephgrave.
($1 = 0.7514 pounds)
(Reporting by Muvija MWriting by Catarina DemonyEditing by William James and David Goodman)
