💸 Biggest foreign bribery settlements ranked: Siemens $1.6B
Siemens paid $1.6B across US and German cases in 2008 and pleaded to accounting charges. Ranked from filings read here, not a full table. 📌
By MrMoney, business desk · Desk editor Laima Ērkšķe-Kreicberga · · 3 min read
RANKEDPhoto: Martin Falbisoner · CC BY-SA 4.0Siemens holds the top line. In December 2008 the German engineering group agreed to pay $1.6 billion to settle bribery cases in the US and Germany, The Washington Post reported. The New York Times called it the largest fine for bribery in modern corporate history at that point.
What we know
- Siemens agreed in December 2008 to pay $1.6 billion to settle bribery inquiries in the US and Germany, The Washington Post reported: $814 million in Germany and $800 million in the US.
- Siemens AG pleaded guilty to accounting violations of the FCPA (the US foreign-bribery law). Its Bangladesh and Venezuela units pleaded guilty to bribery conspiracy, per The Washington Post.
- The Justice Department's sentencing memorandum says Siemens made payments of about $1,360,000,000 from 2001 to 2007, of which $805,500,000 was intended in whole or in part as corrupt payments to foreign officials.
- The Justice Department says VimpelCom, Alstom, Och-Ziff, Total and Marubeni each resolved foreign-bribery charges for between $54.6 million and $795 million, as ranked below.
The ranking below uses the figures the Justice Department (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC, the US market regulator) published for each company. It covers the resolutions in the filings read for this piece. It is not a complete league table, and each total mixes criminal penalties, disgorgement and, in two cases, foreign payments. Read the label on each number.
Siemens: $1.6B, December 2008
Siemens will pay $814 million in Germany, including a $274 million fine levied in 2007, and $800 million in the US, its top lawyer Peter Solmssen said, per The Washington Post. The US part is a $450 million fine plus $350 million in forfeited profits. Judge Richard Leon accepted the plea and no executive was charged. The Times reports that the DOJ let the parent plead to accounting violations, and that Siemens does not dispute the government's account.
See the receipt (opens in a new tab)VimpelCom: $795M, Uzbekistan telecom licenses
The SEC said VimpelCom would pay more than $795 million in a global settlement with the DOJ and Dutch regulators. The split was $167.5 million to the SEC, $230.1 million to the DOJ and $397.5 million to Dutch regulators. The SEC alleges at least $114 million in bribes went through an entity affiliated with an Uzbek official. The company must keep an independent monitor for at least three years.
See the receipt (opens in a new tab)Alstom: $772,290,000 criminal fine, December 2014
Alstom pleaded guilty and agreed to a $772,290,000 fine, the DOJ said. The two counts were falsified books and records and failed internal controls. The DOJ says Alstom paid more than $75 million in bribes to secure $4 billion in projects, for a profit of about $300 million. This is the DOJ fine alone, with no SEC figure added.
See the receipt (opens in a new tab)Och-Ziff: about $412M combined, September 2016
The hedge fund manager agreed to a criminal penalty of $213,055,689 over bribery of officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Libya, the DOJ said. The SEC order adds about $199 million in disgorgement, for roughly $412 million in all. The DOJ says the company admitted its conduct and calls it the first hedge fund held to account under the FCPA.
See the receipt (opens in a new tab)Total: more than $398M, May 2013
Total, the French oil company, agreed to a $245.2 million criminal penalty and $153 million in SEC disgorgement over payments tied to Iranian oil and gas fields, per the SEC. The DOJ says about $60 million in bribes was booked as "business development expenses." The criminal case ended in a three-year deferred prosecution agreement.
See the receipt (opens in a new tab)Marubeni: $54.6M, January 2012
The Japanese trading company agreed to a $54.6 million criminal penalty for its role as an agent in the Bonny Island, Nigeria, bribery scheme, the DOJ said. It sits at the bottom here, but the DOJ counts it as one of five companies in a scheme that produced more than $1.7 billion in penalties and forfeiture orders.
See the receipt (opens in a new tab)What this ranking leaves out
Airbus and the DOJ's bribery charge against a Mexican judge in the Ryan Wedding case are not in the documents read for this piece. The only Airbus mention is an SEC entry on AAR Corp., where Airbus A330 aircraft were the goods being sold. No Airbus resolution figure appears, so none is ranked. Without the Wedding charging papers, nothing is set against the corporate numbers.
Quick quiz · 3 questions
The Siemens file
- Admitted
Judge Richard Leon accepted Siemens' guilty plea to FCPA accounting violations, per The Washington Post. This story
- Filed
DOJ filed a sentencing memorandum asking the court to accept guilty pleas from Siemens AG and three subsidiaries. This story
On file: The Siemens file
The Ledger
On the record
- Siemens agreed to pay $1.6B in the US and Germany in December 2008, and the company's parent and units pleaded guilty as described above.
Still rumour
- Any Airbus bribery resolution amount, and the DOJ's bribery charge against a Mexican judge in the Ryan Wedding case, are not confirmed in the documents read.
That's the record. The rest is rumour. - MrMoney
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