Skip to main content
Menu Icon
Close

InfoBytes Blog

Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

South Korean company agrees to pay $75 million to resolve FCPA claims

Financial Crimes DOJ Of Interest to Non-US Persons FCPA Bribery

Financial Crimes

On November 22, the DOJ announced that it entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with a South Korean engineering company, in which the company agreed to pay more than $75 million in criminal penalties to resolve an investigation into alleged violations of the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions. Half of the penalty amount will be paid to the DOJ, and the remaining half will be paid either to Brazilian authorities or also to the United States. According to the DOJ announcement, between 2007 and 2013, the company allegedly paid approximately $20 million in commissions to a Brazilian intermediary, “knowing that portions of the money would be paid as bribes to officials” at Brazil’s state-owned and controlled oil and energy firm. The bribes were allegedly intended to ensure that the state-owned entity entered into a contract to charter a drill ship from a separate Houston-based offshore oil drilling company, which would then be able to purchase that vessel from the Korean company.

As part of the deferred prosecution agreement, the company agreed to cooperate with the DOJ’s ongoing investigations and prosecutions, to improve its compliance program, and to report to the DOJ on those improvements. The company received partial credit for cooperating with the investigation and taking remedial measures, including (i) enhancing its compliance program; (ii) hiring additional compliance staff; (iii) “implementing enhanced anti-corruption policies and heightened due diligence controls over third party vendors”; (iv) instituting mandatory anti-corruption training; and (v) improving its whistleblower policies.