Samsung Heavy Industries to pay $75 million to resolve bribery case

Samsung heavy industries Co Ltd has agreed to pay more than $75 million in criminal penalties to resolve a US investigation of a scheme to pay millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Brazil, the US 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 drillship by Samsung Heavy, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Samsung Heavy will pay at least half of the total fine to the US government under a deferred prosecution agreement filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, it said.