On November 4, 2020, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis ordered a foreign subsidiary of multibillion-dollar hedge fund manager Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, OZ Africa, to pay $138 million in restitution to former shareholders of Africo Resources Limited, a Canadian mining company that lost out on mining rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to the fund’s role in a judicial bribery scandal in the Central African country. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati represented the former shareholders of Africo Resources Limited in the matter.

The judge’s restitution order marks the end of a four-year ride for Wilson Sonsini partners Moe Fodeman and Michael Sommer and their clients. OZ Africa pleaded guilty in 2016 to engaging in a sprawling African bribery scheme in which millions of dollars in bribes were paid to help acquire mining assets in several African countries, including the rights to the Kalukundi copper and cobalt mine in the Congo. Judge Garaufis put the sentencing on hold in 2018 after a group of investors in the Kalukundi mine argued they were victims of the fraud and entitled under U.S. law to hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Faced with the judge’s order—the first of its kind in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecution—OZ Africa agreed to pay Wilson Sonsini’s clients $138 million. 

“We are extremely happy for all of our clients who waited more than a decade to be compensated for the theft of their property by the defendant and its co-conspirators, and who endured years of litigation as both the defendant and the government, each for its own reasons, tried to deny the victims of the restitution they were entitled to,” said Michael and Moe. 

The Wilson Sonsini team that represented the former shareholders of Africo Resources Limited includes Michael Sommer, Moe Fodeman, and Anthony Geritano.

This high-profile matter was widely reported on by various media outlets including The American Lawyer and The Wall Street Journal.