What went wrong when McKinsey paid bribes to secure consulting contracts with South Africa’s state-owned enterprises? In this episode, Michael Volkov dives into the December 2024 DOJ settlement with McKinsey & Company, which paid $122 million after being found guilty of paying bribes to officials at Transnet and Eskom to secure valuable consulting contracts. The case involved significant violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...
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In a far-reaching criminal case, in November 2024, the Justice Department unsealed a complex, five-count indictment in the Eastern District of New York charging eight defendants, including Gautam S. Adani, Sagar R. Adani and Vneet S. Jaain, executives of the Adani Group, a large Indian renewable-energy company, with conspiracies to commit securities and wire fraud and substantive securities fraud for their roles in a multi-billion-dollar...
Deja Vu all over again — Yogi Berra Yogi Berra said it best — we have seen this scenario before, with similar parties — corrupt foreign officials from Eskom (and Transnet), local partner requirements resulting in engagement of unqualified businesses, and corrupt third parties who assist the bribery scheme in exchange for a cut of the action. This is a familiar set of facts, and...
The McKinsey FCPA case follows several other significant cases involving South Africa. ABB and SAP resolved FCPA cases involving bribes in South Africa; on the SEC front, Gartner resolved a bribery case involving South Africa. Like these other cases, McKinsey’s bribery scheme focused on two important state-owned enterprises: Transnet Ltd, the South African company responsible for operation of ports, rails and pipelines; and Eskom Ltd.,...
On December 5, 2024, DOJ announced a settlement with McKinsey and Company for $122 million for bribes paid to South African government officials to secure valuable consulting contracts. Between 2012 to 2016, McKinsey Africa, acting through former senior partner Vikas Sagar, who plead guilty in 2022, conspired to pay bribes to high-ranking officials at two South African state-owned enterprises: Transnet SOC Ltd., which was the...
The Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s is playing catch up to the Criminal Division on compliance leadership. DOJ’s Criminal Division has issued four separate revisions to its Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs. This is the Antitrust Division’s first revision to its Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs. The Antitrust Division’s revisions mirror many of the Criminal Division’s recent revisions with a particular focus on emerging technologies,...
What happens when a Chief Executive Officer becomes the architect of a global bribery scheme? In this episode of Corruption, Crime, and Compliance, Michael Volkov delivers an in-depth analysis of the BIT Mining FCPA case — a landmark matter that underscores the severe consequences of C-suite misconduct. With CEO Zhengmin Pan at the center of the conspiracy, BIT Mining’s efforts to infiltrate Japan’s emerging casino...
Bit Mining, formerly 500.com, was a doomed company from the beginning, When a CEO orchestrates a bribery scheme with the assistance of other senior executives, shareholders and the public have little chance of ensuring a business operating with ethics and integrity. 500.com’s future was sealed when it embraced bribery as a means to avoid head-to-head competition against established US and European companies seeking to enter...
In reviewing FCPA bribery fact patterns, it is a rare occasion when a company’s CEO is at the epicenter of the criminal conspiracy. In the BIT Mining case, standing atop all of the actors is the CEO Zhengming Pan, Bit Mining’s former CEO and a Chinese national. DOJ had no choice but to charge Pan with a criminal FCPA conspiracy. Others could have been charged...
