This is one of those stories where one might say that they only way to do business in certain countries is to “pay-to-play.” The problem with that is it is against federal law, and it is certainly now allowed by securities regulators. Should you pay such a fine, failure to disclose it is yet another crime.
I don’t know exactly what Hewlett-Packard did, but a U.S. District Judge in California seems to think that HP violated the statutes here and threw the book at them.
This from Industry Leaders Magazine:
A U.S. District Judge on Thursday penalized California-based tech goliath Hewlett-Packard Co. and its subsidiaries in Russian, Poland and Mexico a combined sum of $108 million after it conceded to charges of paying off government authorities in Russia, Poland and Mexico to secure huge technology contracts with the prosecutor’s general office in that nation.
Northern Californian US District Judge Lowell Jensen has fined HP to pay $108 million to the Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after HP pleaded guilty to breaching anti-bribery and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag of the Northern District of California said in a release. A long-running investigation was conducted by the Department of Justice, International Law Enforcement Partners and the FBI.
HP’s Russian subsidiary, ZAO Hewlett-Packard A.O has been fined $58.8 million after it admitted of bribing Russian government authorities to secure massive contracts from the Russian Prosecutor General’s office.
There is a lot more… READ IT HERE.