Hewlett Packard has pleaded guilty to international bribery charges, as part of a plea arrangement it had previously negotiated. As part of the deal. the company’s Russian subsidiary has admitted to charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in a transaction arranged with Russia’s top prosecutorial office. The company will pay an additional $58.7 million to settle the charges on top of the $108 million it agreed to pay in April.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Marshall L. Miller said that “in a brazen violation of the FCPA, Hewlett-Packard’s Russia subsidiary used millions of dollars in bribes from a secret slush fund to secure a lucrative government contract.”
“Hewlett-Packard subsidiaries created a slush fund for bribe payments, set up an intricate web of shell companies and bank accounts to launder money, employed two sets of books to track bribe recipients, and used anonymous email accounts and prepaid mobile telephones to arrange covert meetings to hand over bags of cash,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz said in a statement about April’s settlement.
As part of the deal, prosecutors deferred prosecution of the company’s Polish unit, and signed a non-prosecution agreement with HP’s Mexico division. HP claims that the crimes were perpetrated by a limited group of individuals who are no longer employed with the company.
