Professor Elam

Tuesday Dec 23, 2014

BRIBERY PLEA

Switching gears, energy companies world-wide are sure to be examining the fallout from the decision by French engineering giant Alstom SA to plead guilty and pay $772 million to resolve criminal charges that it paid tens of millions of dollars in a “widespread” bribery scheme to win electric power contracts around the globe. The record criminal bribery penalty comes after more than six years of investigations into Alstom from law-enforcement agencies in 10 countries. The company and its subsidiaries’ schemes lasted for more than a decade, into at least 2011, with the firms admitting to more than $75 million in bribes to help secure more than $4 billion in Alstom projects in countries including Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Bahamas.

“It was astounding in its breadth, its brazenness and its world-wide consequences,” said James Cole, U.S. deputy attorney general.