Two company directors, including a former DTZ project manager, have been jailed for bribery offences relating to the development of commercial property in London.
Stephen Banks, former managing director of Skansen Interiors Limited, gave project manager Graham Deakin, then at DTZ, £10,000 and promised him a further £29,000 in return for confidential information in 2012 and 2013.
Banks was intending to use the information to help Skansen gain contracts through DTZ. Skansen won contracts in excess of £6m.
Banks and Deakin pleaded guilty to bribery at an earlier hearing.
This week, Banks was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court to 12 months’ imprisonment and was disqualified as a director for six years and Deakin was sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment and was disqualified as a director for seven years.
Deakin was also ordered to pay £10,697 within three months or face a further seven months in prison.
Skansen Interiors was previously convicted of failing to have in place adequate procedures to prevent bribery.
Anne Louise McCusker, from the CPS, said: “Banks and Deakin worked together in their criminal scheme to promote the commercial interests of Skansen Interiors Limited over other companies that tendered for contracts in good faith.
“Only when a new managing director took over at Skansen Interiors Limited was the criminal conduct discovered and reported to police.
“This criminal conduct is corrosive to commerce and undermines the economic interests of the City of London and the United Kingdom as a whole.”
A spokesman for Cushman & Wakefield, which merged with DTZ in 2015, said: “Graham Deakin left DTZ in October 2014. We conducted a full investigation and cooperated fully with the police and other investigations.”
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