NEW YORK (AP) – Defense contractor RTX Corporation, formerly known as Raytheon, will pay $252 million to the U.S. government to settle criminal charges that it paid bribes to secure a contract with Qatar. federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.
The company entered into a deferred prosecution agreement on charges of violating anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Arms Export Control Act.
It also agreed to pay a $52.5 million civil penalty to resolve a parallel Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and must forfeit at least $37 million to satisfy both investigations. There is.
During a brief hearing in federal court in Brooklyn, RTX’s attorneys waived their right to indictment and pleaded not guilty to both counts. They did not dispute any of the allegations in court documents filed in connection with this agreement.
Under the agreement, the company must demonstrate good behavior and promote a culture of ethics and compliance with anti-corruption laws over the next three and a half years.
Messages seeking comment were left with RTX Corporation and the Qatari Embassy in Washington.
RTX said in a July regulatory filing that it had set aside $1.24 billion to resolve legal and regulatory concerns. Christopher Calio, the company’s president and CEO, told investors that the investigation primarily involves issues predating the 2020 merger of Raytheon and United Technologies, which formed the current company. spoke.
“These issues primarily arose from the legacy Raytheon and Rockwell Collins prior to the mergers and acquisitions of these companies,” Kallio said. “We have already taken strong corrective action to address the legacy gaps that caused these problems.”
From 2012 to 2016, Raytheon employees and agents offered and paid bribes to foreign officials to obtain favorable deals with the Qatari Emiri Air Force and the Qatari Armed Forces, according to court documents.
The company has since succeeded in securing four addenda to its existing contract with the Gulf Cooperation Council (the regional association of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), with a total of 500 million yen for joint construction. Signed a $10 million sole procurement contract. – Qatari military operations center, court documents state.
Raytheon earned about $36.7 million from an additional contract with the Gulf Cooperation Council and expected more than $72 million in revenue from its joint operations center, but the Qatari government ultimately did not move forward with the deal, prosecutors said. said.
Wednesday’s fine is just the latest legal fallout from RTX’s business dealings.
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The company will soon enter another deferred prosecution agreement to resolve civil and criminal investigations in Massachusetts into defective pricing claims related to contracts with Raytheon from 2011 to 2017, according to court and regulatory filings. The agreement is scheduled to be concluded.
In August, the company agreed to pay the State Department $200 million after voluntarily disclosing more than 20 alleged violations of the Arms Export Control Act and international arms trafficking regulations. Among the allegations are that the company provided sensitive military aircraft data to China and that employees took company-issued laptops containing information about missiles and aircraft to Iran, Lebanon and Russia. Included.
