ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss engineering and technology group ABB has been fined 4 million Swiss francs ($4.3 million) by the country’s Attorney General in connection with a bribery case in South Africa.
The Attorney General’s office on Friday said the penalty was imposed on ABB for “not having taken all necessary and reasonable organisational provisions in order to prevent bribery payments to foreign officials in South Africa”.
ABB and South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) this week reached an agreement that the company will pay reparations for its involvement in state corruption, the crime agency said on Thursday.
The company agreed to pay 2.5 billion rand ($144.51 million) in punitive reparations to South Africa within 60 days from Dec. 1, the NPA’s statement said.
This is in addition to 1.6 billion rand ($92.48 million)the company paid back to South African state power utility Eskom in 2020.
ABB was found guilty of improper payments and other compliance issues at the Kusile power station after a wide-scale investigation into state corruption concluded in June 2022.
(Reporting by Noele Illien; Editing by David Goodman)