International retail giant Walmart yesterday agreed to pay over 282 US Dollar to various US bodies to settle charges of violating anti-corruption regulations while conducting its business in India, China, Brazil and Mexico.
According to the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), these violations were conducted by Walmart's third-party intermediaries who made payments to foreign government officials without reasonable assurances that they complied with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or
FCPA.
SEC has charged Walmart with violating FCPA by failing to operate a sufficient anti-corruption compliance programme for more than a decade as the retailer experienced rapid international growth.
Walmart agreed to pay more than 144 million US Dollar to settle the SEC's charges and approximately 138 million US Dollar to resolve parallel criminal charges by the Department of Justice for a combined total of more than 282 million US Dollar, SEC said.