Jonathan Taylor, the oil industry whistleblower who was recently cleared of bribery and extortion charges, has expressed his surprise that Monaco’s public prosecutor has launched an appeal against the ruling.
Mr Taylor was arrested on an Interpol notice issued by Monaco when he went with his family on holiday to Croatia in July 2020, and what should have been a two-week stay became a year-long nightmare with his case bouncing backwards and forwards between Zagreb and Monaco.
He had exposed extensive wrongdoing at SBM Offshore in Monaco, where he had worked as a lawyer, resulting in the oil services company paying hundreds of millions of euros in fines in Europe and the US.
However, when he claimed compensation for wrongful dismissal the company accused him of extortion, and Monaco opened a criminal enquiry. SBM Offshore later dropped its claims against Mr Taylor but Monaco kept the charges on the books.
Mr Taylor’s lawyer, William Bourdon, told the BBC that the Monaco judge’s order “explicitly clears my client of all suspicion”. He added: “It is very regrettable that the public prosecutor’s office of Monaco appealed this decision, it is incomprehensible… We remain, of course, confident for the continuation of the procedure.”
