The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has awarded its largest ever award to a cash rescue program.

the wall street journalAccording to people familiar with the matter, the SEC’s record $279 million whistleblower award is linked to a corruption case against Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson.

In December 2019, the US DoJ confirmed that Ericsson had agreed to pay over $1 billion to complete investigations into alleged bribery of public officials in several countries.

Corruption investigation

At the time, Ericsson “acknowledged a year-long campaign of corruption in five countries to consolidate its grip on the telecommunications sector,” the US company said at the time.

The DoJ said at the time that Ericsson’s corrupt practices stretched from at least 2000 to 2016 in countries including Djibouti, China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Kuwait.

The settlement, considered the highest under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), paid criminal fines of $520 million to the Department of Justice and $540 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Following the 2019 settlement, the company entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

But that wasn’t the only formal censorship for Erickson.

In February 2022, Erickson’s own 2019 investigation revealed payments to the Islamic State militant group in Iraq.

In June 2022, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) then opened an investigation into Ericsson’s behavior in Iraq in 2019.

Erickson A resolution has been taken with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding non-criminal violations of the 2019 Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA).

Ericsson agreed to pay a $207 million fine and plead guilty to violating anti-corruption provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Whistleblower Payments

The SEC’s record $279 million whistleblower award is tied to the $1.1 billion settlement the Swedish company reached with U.S. authorities in 2019, The Wall Street Journal now reports.

According to the WSJ, the SEC made no mention of the enforcement action underlying the decision and did not identify the tipster, adhering to whistleblower protection rules that prevent regulators from publicly disclosing. these informations.

Under SEC rules, plaintiffs can receive rewards ranging from 10% to 30% of fines collected in SEC civil actions and actions received from other law enforcement agencies. .

An SEC spokesperson declined to comment, the WSJ reported.

A spokesperson for Erickson also declined to comment.

It was also reported that the two individuals separately applied for whistleblower rewards from the SEC, but their applications were denied.

The $279 million whistleblower award surpasses the previous record, $114 million whistleblower award given to individuals by the SEC in October 2020.

The financial penalties against Erickson are the highest ever imposed by the US government for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.