Global software company SAP has agreed to pay US$220 million ($353m) to settle US bribery charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
The settlement was announced today by the US Department of Justice and the Securities & Exchange Commission.
In a statement, the DoJ said: "SAP and its co-conspirators made bribe payments and provided other things of value intended for the benefit of South African and Indonesian foreign officials, delivering money in the form of cash payments, political contributions, and wire and other electronic transfers, along with luxury goods purchased during shopping trips".
The bribes were arranged "with the goal of obtaining improper advantages for SAP in connection with various contracts," it said.
The SEC said SAP had employed third party consultants between December 2014 and January 2022 to bribe government officials in exchange for contracts with public sector businesses in South Africa, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Indonesia and Azerbaijan.
The SEC said the Germany-headquartered multinational had reported the bribes as legitimate business expenses in its accounts “despite the fact that certain of the third-party intermediaries could not show that they provided the services for which they had been contracted”.
Held accountable
The SEC’s FCPA unit chief Charles Cain said its order “holds SAP accountable for misconduct that spanned seven jurisdictions and persisted for several years and serves as a stark reminder of the need for global companies to be attuned to both the risks of their business and the need to maintain adequate entity-level controls over all their subsidiaries”.
For the DoJ, Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri said the settlement "marks an important moment in our ongoing fight against foreign bribery and corruption...
"This case demonstrates not only the critical importance of coordinated international efforts to combat corruption, but also how our corporate enforcement policies incentivise companies to be good corporate citizens, by cooperating with our investigations and appropriately remediating, so that we can take strong action to address misconduct.”
Panama scheme
The SEC noted SAP was charged with running a bribery scheme in Panama in 2016 after an SEC investigation found a former SAP executive paid US$145,000 in bribes to a senior Panamanian government official and offered bribes to two others in exchange for lucrative sales contracts.
SAP agreed to pay US$3.7m to settle the charges.
Its executive Vicente Garcia was sentenced to 22 months in prison for the bribery offences.
SAP’s New Zealand business reported a net profit of $5.3m for the year to December 2022 from revenue of $187.4m, according to a Companies Office filing.
