Ericsson is setting aside $220 million for a potential resolution with the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), regarding its latest scandal involving bribery allegations.
Ericsson paid more than $1 billion in penalties in 2019 to settle bribery and corruption investigations by the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) including violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Authorities discovered that Ericsson had made and erroneously documented bribes of tens of millions of dollars as part of a long-running conspiracy. Ericsson’s activities in six countries were penalized: China, Djibouti, Indonesia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam.
However, additional claims emerged in early 2022 that Ericsson may have made payments to the ISIS terror organization in order to secure access to specific transport routes in Iraq. And Ericsson quickly launched an investigation into the allegations.
If the Iraq claims are proven to be true, it would be a violation of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) in the 2019 deal with the Department of Justice.
Today, Ericsson stated that it has not reached an agreement with the DOJ addressing the alleged violations and that discussions are ongoing.
The $220 million penalty will be shown in Ericsson’s fourth-quarter 2022 financial results, which will be released next week.
“The firm thinks that this is a sufficiently reliable estimate of the financial penalty connected with any prospective breach settlement, and this provision also includes projected expenses for the previously announced extended monitorship,” according to an announcement made today by Ericsson.
Ericsson claims that since 2019, it has taken anti-corruption actions that have been supervised by its board of directors, including improving its compliance program and internal controls.