Albemarle to pay $218M to settle bribery investigations
Published: 10:11 29 Sep 2023 EDT
Albemarle Corporation has agreed to pay $218 million to resolve investigations brought on the the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the company participated in corrupt schemes to pay bribes to foreign government officials.
The Justice Department said Thursday that, according to the company’s admissions, between 2009 and 2017 Albemarle through its third-party sales agents and subsidiary employees, conspired to pay bribes to government officials to obtain and retain chemical catalyst business with state-owned oil refineries in Vietnam, Indonesia, and India.
The Charlotte, North Carolina-based specialty chemical manufacturing company profited about $98.5 million as a result, the DoJ said.
“Despite repeated and glaring bribery-related red flags, Albemarle failed for many years to implement sufficient internal accounting controls relevant to the use of agents by its global refining solutions business to make sales to state-owned customers around the world,” Charles Cain, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Unit, said in a statement.
“This failure set the stage for wide-ranging misconduct.”
To resolve the matter, Albemarle has entered into a three-year non-prosecution agreement with the DoJ to pay a penalty of $98.2 million, an administrative forfeiture of $98.5 million, and $103.6 million in disgorgement and prejudgement to in part resolve the SEC’s concurrent investigation.
However, the DoJ said it has agreed to credit $81.9 million of the forfeiture penalty against disgorgement Albemarle has agreed to pay the SEC, resulting in the $218 million resolution.
“As today’s announcement makes clear, the Justice Department will work tirelessly with our partners in the ongoing fight against international corruption,” said Nicole Argentieri, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the DoJ’s Criminal Division, in a statement.
“Today’s resolution also demonstrates the real benefits that companies can receive if they self-disclose misconduct, substantially cooperate, and extensively remediate.”
Shares of Albemarle were higher following the news, up 0.7% at US$173.70 in early trade on Friday.
Contact the author at emily.jarvie@proactiveinvestors.com
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