Samsung heavy industries Co Ltd has agreed to pay more than $75 million in criminal penalties to resolve a U.S. investigation of a scheme to pay millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Brazil, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday.
Samsung Heavy has admitted to paying about $20 million to a Brazilian intermediary between 2007 and 2013 knowing that parts of it would be paid as bribes to officials in Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras SA for a contract which facilitated the sale of a drill ship by Samsung Heavy, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Samsung Heavy will pay at least half of the total fine to the U.S. government under a deferred prosecution agreement filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, it said.
(Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Sandra Maler)