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Hewlett-Packard pleads guilty to bribery charge

COMPUTING giant Hewlett-Packard pleaded guilty on Thursday to felony charges that its employees bribed Russian government officials for a contract.

The company was fined $58.7 million (£36.17m) after Hewlett-Packard’s Russian subsidiary admitted violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the US Department of Justice said yesterday.

The department alleged that the HP division had paid $2m (£1.23m) to retain a technology contract with Russian prosecutors.

“In a brazen violation of the FCPA, Hewlett-Packard’s Russia subsidiary used millions of dollars in bribes from a secret slush fund to secure a lucrative government contract,” said principal deputy assistant attorney general Marshall Miller.

“Even more troubling was that the government contract was with Russia’s top prosecutor’s office.”

The plea and sentence were part of a larger agreement reached in April.

HP agreed to pay a total of $108m (£66.56m) in criminal and civil penalties for bribing officials in Russia, Mexico and Poland.

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