South Korea’s Samsung Heavy settles Brazil graft probe for $149 mln
BRASILIA, Feb 23 (Reuters)
South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries 010140.KS
agreed to pay 812 million reais ($148.56 million) in a leniency deal with Brazilian authorities to settle corruption investigations, federal prosecutors said late on Monday.
On its website, the prosecutor’s office
said the deal was part of a global negotiation between the company and U.S. and Brazilian authorities to settle alleged crimes over contracts with state-owned oil maker Petroleo Brasileiro SA PETR4.SA.
A Samsung Heavy representative
confirmed the company signed a pact with Brazilian authorities but declined further comment, saying more information would be disclosed in a regulatory filing.
In Tuesday’s regulatory filing,
Samsung Heavy
said, “The company has accepted and agreed to results of Brazilian authorities’ investigation to resolve management uncertainties, which may arise from litigation processes, if they last long.”
Nasdaq
Samsung Heavy Industries Co.
said Tuesday that it has reached a settlement with Brazilian state prosecutors and auditors over a graft probe surrounding drillship orders by the company.
The company
said in a regulatory filing that it has agreed to pay 812 million reais ($149 million) in a leniency deal
with Brazil’s Office of the Comptroller General, Office of the Attorney General and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office,
accepting the results of an investigation into a criminal case involving a broker.
Samsung Heavy Industries
signed deals with Brazil’s state-owned oil firm Petrobras from 2006 and 2007 to provide three drillships to the company.
The ships were delivered between 2009 and 2011.
The South Korean shipbuilder
has been implicated in a corruption scandal involving Petrobras, after a broker between Samsung and the Brazilian oil firm was found to have misused part of the commission fee as bribes.