Skip to main content
Menu Icon
Close

FCPA Scorecard Blog

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act & Anti-Corruption

Two More Former Executives of Hedge Fund Manager Charged by SEC in Far-Reaching Bribery Scheme

On January 26, the SEC charged two more former executives of an American hedge fund management firm with being the “driving forces” behind a massive bribery scheme across Africa that violated the FCPA.  The civil complaint, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, alleges that the former head of the firms European office in London, and an investment executive on Africa-related deals, caused the firm "to pay tens of millions of dollars in bribes to government officials on the continent of Africa.”  Specific allegations include that they induced Libyan authorities to invest in the firm's managed funds, and directed illicit efforts to secure mining deals by bribing government officials in Libya, Chad, Niger, Guinea, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  In announcing the complaint, Kara Brockmeyer, Chief of the SEC’s FCPA Unit, said the defendants “were the masterminds of the firm’s bribery scheme that improperly used investor funds to pay bribes through agents and partners to officials at the highest levels of foreign governments.”  The complaint seeks disgorgement and civil monetary penalties among other remedies.

The complaint follows the firm’s payment last September of $412 million to the DOJ and SEC to settle criminal and civil charges in one of the largest ever FCPA enforcement actions.  Previous FCPA Scorecard coverage of the firm’s settlement with the DOJ and SEC can be found here.