The Russian subsidiary of the American company Hewlett-Packard, Hewlett-Packard CJSC (HP Russia), by court decision, will pay a fine of $58.8 million in the case of bribing Russian officials in order to conclude a large contract for the supply of computer equipment to the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia, follows from the message , published on the website of the US Department of Justice on September 11.

The corresponding decision was made on Thursday by the Northern District Court of California. At the court hearing, HP Russia agreed to plead guilty to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the report noted. The company accepted a plea agreement that states that Hewlett-Packard executives created a multimillion-dollar secret fund that was at least partly used to bribe Russian government officials who, in return, awarded the company a contract worth more than €35 million, the department said.

According to the document, Hewlett-Packard CJSC used a scheme of transactions with the repurchase of its own products. The scheme was as follows: first, HP Russia sold computer equipment to an intermediary company, then bought this equipment back from him with a markup of approximately €8 million and payment of another €4.2 million for services, after which it sold the same products to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia at an inflated price. price. Payments to the intermediary were made by Hewlett-Packard CJSC mainly through a chain of shell companies, some of which were directly linked to Russian officials, the US Department of Justice said.

“The funds from the secret fund were spent on travel services, luxury cars, expensive jewelry, clothing, furniture and other items,” the statement said.

To account for and hide bribes, HP Russia employees participating in the conspiracy used double-entry bookkeeping. Among other things, they kept a table in which bribe takers were divided into categories, and it also indicated the legends used to pay the bribe. “For example, one of the managers of HP Russia signed a written agreement to transfer a “commission” in the amount of €2.8 million to a shell company registered in the UK, which was associated with the director of the Russian state agency responsible for the project with the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia. HP Russia never disclosed the existence of this agreement to internal or external auditors or management external to HP Russia,” the ministry said.

In addition, Hewlett-Packard admitted that its representatives bribed officials in Mexico and Poland. Collectively, the company and its subsidiaries found to have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act will pay a fine of more than $108 million.

The fact that the Russian subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard admitted to bribing Russian officials was first announced by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in April 2014. According to the FBI, the competition for the contract, for which the Russian office of HP switched to kickbacks, was announced in 1999. The contract, worth more than €35 million, concerned the development of a project to create a computer and telecommunications infrastructure for the Prosecutor General's Office worth more than $100 million, the FBI said. According to investigators, Hewlett-Packard CJSC considered this contract as a key that could open the door to the supply of equipment to other Russian government agencies.

Hewlett Packard will pay $58.8 million for bribing Russian officials