Rolls-Royce has agreed to pay out a record £497m as part of a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) following allegations of bribery in Indonesia, Thailand, Russia, China, India, Nigeria and Malaysia.
The company said: “Rolls-Royce has co-operated fully with the authorities and will continue to do so.”
The DPA was approved this week by Sir Brian Leveson, President of the Queen’s Bench division.
David Green, director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), said: “[The agreement] allows Rolls-Royce to draw a line under conduct spanning seven countries, three decades and three sectors of its business.”
The SFO’s four-year investigation into the engineering company is the largest it has ever conducted, costing £13m and involving 70 SFO personnel. It is the third use of a DPA since the power became available to prosecutors in 2014.
The SFO will receive £497m, but separate agreements with the US Department of Justice and the Minsterio Publico Federal in Brazil bring the total payment to £671m.
Barry Vitou, partner at Pinsent Masons, said: “By anyone’s standards this is one of the Top 10 enforcement actions of all time. The amount dwarfs any amount previously contemplated by a UK court in the context of criminal law enforcement."
In the US, however, there is speculation that President-elect Donald Trump may seek to repeal the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act—the stateside equivalent of the Bribery Act. He described it as a “horrible law and it should be changed”, in a May 2012 interview with CNBC.
Crime and regulatory barrister Edward Henry, of QEB Hollis Whiteman, said: “Trump wants to dump the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act but the massive Rolls-Royce fines show how much Washington depends on the bribery and corruption cash cow.”
