The US Department of Justice (DoJ) laid out charges against a former Ericsson account manager for his alleged role in a bribery scandal comprising conspiracy to commit money laundering and a violation of anti-corruption laws.
In a statement, the DoJ accused ex-Ericsson Horn of Africa account manager Afework Bereket of offences dating from between 2010 and January 2014.
The indictment is for his alleged role in a scheme to pay bribes totalling $2.1 million to two high-ranking officials and an executive at Djibouti’s state-owned operator to win contracts worth around €20.3 million ($24 million).
“To effectuate the bribery scheme, Bereket and others caused an Ericsson subsidiary to enter into a sham contract with a consulting company and approve fake invoices to conceal the bribe payments,” the DoJ claimed.
“Bereket and others also completed a draft due diligence report that failed to disclose the spousal relationship between the owner of the consulting company and one of the high-ranking government officials who was bribed,” it added.
If charged, the maximum penalty for the offences is 25 years in prison.
The case is the latest fall-out from Ericsson’s Djibouti bribery scandal, which has already seen the vendor settle an anti-corruption case with US authorities [1] and Swedish police charge four former employees [2].
After settling the US case Ericsson also paid related damages to rival Nokia [3].
Following its settlement with US authorities in 2019, Ericsson CEO Borje Ekholm acknowledged the vendor’s past failings and highlighted it had introduced a robust compliance programme. This included allocation of additional resources to compliance and investigations alongside introducing analytics tools to prevent high-risk transactions.
[1] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/home-banner/ericsson-pays-1-1b-to-settle-foreign-bribery-case
[2] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/home-banner/former-ericsson-employees-charged-in-bribery-case
[3] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/top-three/ericsson-nokia-damages
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