Clean fuel tech firm and ex-CEO violated the FCPA in China
Friday, September 27, 2019 at 1:48PM
A Canadian clean fuel technology company and its former chief executive officer
agreed Friday to pay more than $4.1 million to the SEC to resolve charges that they violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by bribing a government official in China.
Westport Fuel Systems, Inc. of Vancouver
will disgorge $2.35 million and pay prejudgment interest of $196,000, plus a civil penalties of $1.5 million.
The former CEO, Nancy Gougarty of Leesville, South Carolina, will pay a civil penalty of $120,000.
The company and Gougarty
resolved the SEC enforcement action without admitting or denying the agency’s findings.
In an internal administrative order (pdf),
the SEC
said Westport, acting through Gougarty and others, bribed a Chinese official “by transferring shares of stock in Westport’s Chinese joint venture to a Chinese private equity fund in which the government official held a financial interest.”
Westport concealed the identity of the Chinese private equity fund in its public filings and books and records, the SEC said.
The FCPA Blog