Former Ericsson Employee Charged With Bribing Djibouti Officials in Violation of FCPA

Afework Bereket, former employee of Swedish telecommunications giant Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson and dual citizen of Ethiopia and Sweden, was indicted for his alleged role in a bribery scheme to pay off government officials in Djibouti, the Department of Justice said Sept. 8. Bereket allegedly engaged in the scheme from 2010 to 2014 in which he served as Ericsson's account manager for the Horn of Africa. He purportedly bribed two high-level officials in the small African nation's executive branch and one at its state-owned telecommunications company to win a contract valued at around $24 million. The scheme involved Bereket and others allegedly leading an Ericsson subsidiary to enter into a fraudulent contract with a consulting company that then signed off on fake invoices to hide the bribe payments, DOJ said. The bribe payments were routed through bank accounts in the U.S. to hide the funds, it said.

Ericsson entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with DOJ in December 2019 concurrent with a criminal investigation at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In the case, Ericsson was charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act. Ericsson Egypt Ltd., an Ericsson subsidiary, pleaded guilty to FCPA violations, leading the company to pay over $520 million in penalties, DOJ said. Bereket is still at large but faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.

“Bereket allegedly used the U.S. financial system to pay bribes to high-level government officials in Djibouti to ensure that Swedish telecom giant Ericsson won a multimillion-dollar government contract,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Today’s unsealed charges demonstrate the department’s commitment to hold individuals accountable for violations of the FCPA and to ensure that business is won or lost on merit, not the amount of bribes a company’s employees and agents are willing to pay.”