SEC Charges UAE-Based Brooge Energy and Former Executives with Fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges against Brooge Energy Limited, a publicly-traded energy company located in the United Arab Emirates, the company’s former CEO, Nicolaas Lammert Paardenkooper, and its former Chief Strategy Officer and Interim CEO, Lina Saheb.

According to the SEC order, before and after going public through a special purpose acquisition transaction, Brooge, whose securities trade on NASDAQ, misstated between 30 and 80 percent of its revenues from 2018 through early 2021 in SEC filings related to the offer and sale of up to $500 million of securities. The order finds that Brooge created false invoices to support inflating revenues from its oil facilities in Fujairah, UAE by over $70 million over three years, and that Paardenkooper and Saheb knew, or were reckless in not knowing, of the fraud. The SEC order also finds that Brooge provided these false invoices to its auditors to conceal the inflated revenue. According to the order, Brooge agreed during the SEC’s investigation not to issue the $500 million in securities. In April 2023, the company announced a restatement of its audited financial statements from 2018 through 2020.

“Thanks to the diligent work of SEC staff, we were able to stop this accounting and offering fraud in its tracks before domestic investors suffered significant harm,” said Osman Nawaz, Chief of the Complex Financial Instruments Unit. 

Brooge agreed to settle the SEC’s charges that found the company violated the antifraud, proxy statement, reporting, and books and records provisions of the federal securities laws and to pay a $5 million penalty. Paardenkooper and Saheb also agreed to settle the charges, to each pay $100,000 civil penalties, and to permanent officer and director bars.

The SEC investigation was conducted by Jonathan Shapiro and Sean Whittington of the Complex Financial Instruments Unit. They were assisted by David Miller and Timothy Halloran and supervised by Reid Muoio and Osman Nawaz.