(HedgeCo.Net) A former executive of a financial services company has been charged with orchestrating a bribery scheme to help a client to win a government contract to build and operate an electrical power plant in the Republic of Ghana in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). <\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s complaint alleges that Asante Berko, a former executive of a foreign-based subsidiary of a U.S. bank holding company, arranged for his firm\u2019s client, a Turkish energy company, to funnel at least $2.5 million to a Ghana-based intermediary to pay illicit bribes to Ghanaian government officials in order to gain their approval of an electrical power plant project. The complaint further alleges that Berko helped the intermediary pay more than $200,000 in bribes to various other government officials, and Berko personally paid more than $60,000 to members of the Ghanaian parliament and other government officials. According to the complaint, Berko took deliberate measures to prevent his employer from detecting his bribery scheme, including misleading his employer\u2019s compliance personnel about the true role and purpose of the intermediary company.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs alleged in our complaint, Berko orchestrated a scheme to bribe high-level Ghanaian officials in pursuit of firm business and his own enrichment. Berko\u2019s misconduct was egregious and individual accountability remains a key component to our FCPA enforcement efforts,\u201d said Charles Cain, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division\u2019s FCPA Unit. \u201cThe firm\u2019s compliance personnel took appropriate steps to prevent the firm from participating in the transaction and it is not being charged.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, charges Berko with violating the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA and federal securities laws. The SEC is seeking monetary penalties against Berko among other remedies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HedgeCo.Net) A former executive of a financial services company has been charged with orchestrating a bribery scheme to help a client to win a government contract to build and operate an electrical power plant in the Republic of Ghana in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73740,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73739\/revisions\/73740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}