The Serious Fraud Office has secured a £7m settlement from engineering group, M. W. Kellogg, in a case relating to the payment of more than £100m in bribes to Nigerian government officials by its parent company.

The UK subsidiary of the global engineering group, once part of Haliburton, agreed to pay the sum in recognition of profits it made from the illegally obtained contract to build a $6bn (£3.6bn) gas liquefaction plant in Nigeria. The US parent company, KBR, paid $188m of bribes over a 10-year period to secure the contract.

The UK settlement was agreed through a civil recovery order, a mechanism which allows both SFO and the company it is investigating to avoid a long, costly trial.

Although the process is relatively new,  the SFO is investigating a number of high-profile corruption cases which could result in further civil recovery orders in the coming months.

Richard Alderman, director of the Serious Fraud Office, said: “The SFO will continue to encourage companies to engage with us over issues of bribery and corruption in the expectation of being treated fairly.

The £7m settlement agreed by the SFO represents the sums of money recieved by M.W. Kellogg as a result of the Nigerian contract. The settlement is to be paid within 14 days.