One of the first criminal proceedings - of an individual, rather than of a corporate entity - began in London last week in connection with allegations of bribery connected to Securency, a company part-owned by the Reserve Bank of Australia at the time.Peter Chapman, the UK-based former African sales manager for Securency, is on trial for six counts of corruption relating to his dealings with an unnamed official of Nigeria's central bank.Drawing from daily court reports by Fairfax Media last week, highlights of the prosecution case include that Chapman received more than A$700,000 in commissions.Internal Securency emails point to pressure from Chapman's managers to increase sales, including one that said "I would ask you all to focus on those essential markets to see if there are any ways in which we can bring forward orders… creative thinking is required and will be rewarded."The alleged bribes to the Nigerian official continued in 2009, even after an initial expose of disquiet among company insiders reported earlier that year by The Age.David Ellery, who was Securency's financial controller and company secretary until 2010, told the court that bribing a Nigerian official was just "a cost of doing business."Ellery said he was present at one meeting at Securency's head office about their Nigerian operation, attended by Chapman and several other senior Securency directors.Ellery said that after being told of the alleged bribe in the call with Chapman, he discussed the call with Hugh Brown, the Securency director of sales, with Joe Mamo the director of strategic marketing, and another executive "at various times afterwards". Half a dozen former senior staff of Securency are due to stand trial in coming months in Australia.In 2012, David Ellery, the former chief financial officer of Securency, received a six-month suspended sentence following a guilty plea concerning his role in fostering the payment of bribes to sales agents. He has agreed to co-operate with the many pending prosecutions.Other convictions and multi million dollar fines cannot be reported thanks to suppression orders.