Rolls-Royce Bribery Case Update

This settlement of £671 million means that the engineering giant will avoid being prosecuted by anti-corruption investigators in the United Kingdom, the United States or Brazil. The engineering giant Rolls-Royce apologized after it was found out to have paid bribes including luxury cars and millions of pounds’ cash.

According to BBC, the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) found a conspiracy to corrupt or failure to prevent bribery by Rolls-Royce in China, India and other markets. The company apologized for the cases spanning nearly 25 years. The United Kingdom court ruled the aerospace firm to pay £497 million plus costs to the SFO which conducted its biggest ever investigation into the company.

The SFO revealed 12 counts of conspiracy to corrupt of failure to prevent bribery in Indonesia, Thailand, India, Russia, Nigeria, China, and Malaysia. Rolls-Royce will also pay $170 million to the United States Justice Department and a further $26 million to Brazilian regulators. The Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) approved the agreement between the SFO and Rolls-Royce. This is only the third agreement that the SFO struck since they were first introduced into United Kingdom law in 2014.

Britain’s leading multinational manufacturer made the admission on Tuesday at the high court in London just one day after it was revealed that it would pay £671 million in penalties to settle long-running corruption allegations. More than 30 million documents relating of middlemen were examined by even 70 investigators during the SFO’s £13 million inquiry and more than 200 interviews of current and former Rolls-Royce employees were carried out.

Whittam said that the searches and arrests were made in the United Kingdom as well as overseas. The high court told negotiations between the firm and investigators to complete the agreement with the United States regulators before Donald Trump becomes president on Friday, according to The Guardian report. This settlement means that the engineering giant will avoid being prosecuted by anti-corruption investigators in the United States, United Kingdom or Brazil, but individual executives may still be charged.