Medical waste company to pay $84M in FCPA bribery schemes
Reprints
A medical waste company has agreed to pay more than $84 million to settle charges it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in bribery schemes in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday.
The company, Bannockburn, Illinois-based Stericycle Inc., said in a statement it has transformed its board of directors and leadership team since the period covered in the investigation.
The SEC said in its statement that Stericycle, a leading provider of medical waste and other services in 16 countries worldwide, paid millions of dollars in bribes to obtain and maintain business from government customers in the three countries from at least 2012 to 2016.
The SEC said Stericycle staff kept and emailed spreadsheets that identified government customers who received bribes, and the scheme included sham third-party vendors who used false invoices to conceal cash payments to government clients.
The agency said the company also failed to have sufficient internal accounting controls in place, such as a centralized compliance department, to prevent or detect the misconduct, and to implement its FCPA policies or procedures before 2016.
President and CEO Cindy J. Miller said in a statement, “Resolving this legacy matter represents another important milestone in Stericycle’s business transformation journey.
“Over the past several years, we have focused on fully remediating the issues identified during the investigation. This includes instituting new policies, procedures and internal controls and building a culture of compliance, integrity and accountability that aligns with our core values across our entire global operation.”
Read Next
-
SEC chooses seasoned investigator as FCPA chief
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s new chief of enforcement for its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act unit is an experienced member of the group, and enforcement levels aren’t expected to change much under his leadership, observers say.
