Marubeni, a Chiyoda-Ku, Japan-based commodity-trading company, has agreed to pay over to the Securities and Exchange Commission $88 million as well as pleading guilty to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits paying government officials to win or keep business, the company said.
The agreement is part of the government’s investigation of Alstom over possible improper payments made to win business. Two ex-Alstom executives have pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and another is scheduled to go to trial in June. The Alstom employees hired consultants to funnel “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to a member of the Indonesian Parliament and officials of a state-owned electricity company.
Marubeni on Feb. 26 was released from a two-year deferred prosecution agreement for its role in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian officials to win $6 billion in contracts to build and expand a liquefied natural-gas plant on Bonny Island. That case, which was filed in January 2012, makes no mention of the company’s involvement in the Alstom matter.
