By Luc Cohen and Nate Raymond
NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) – A unit of RTX agreed on Wednesday to pay more than $370 million to resolve U.S. allegations that it conspired to pay bribes to an official in Qatar in exchange for help winning business with the military. Middle Eastern country.
Lawyers for RTX subsidiary Raytheon (NYSE ) appeared before a federal judge in Brooklyn after the company entered into a deferred prosecution agreement to resolve charges brought by the US Department of Justice.
The company reached a separate agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve a related foreign bribery case, according to court documents. Raytheon admitted to certain allegations as part of Wednesday's settlement.
The company also agreed at the same time to enter into a separate deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in Boston to resolve a separate procurement fraud investigation, according to court documents. That case is not yet public.
RTX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The deal finalizes part of a series of deals that Arlington, Virginia-based RTX said it hoped to enter into with the Justice Department and the SEC, for which it had set aside $959 million.
The series of agreements would resolve long-standing investigations that have weighed on the company, formerly known as Raytheon Technologies (NYSE:), since 2019. The company merged with United Technologies in 2020 and changed its name last year.
The foreign bribery investigations examined the extent to which Raytheon made improper payments in connection with contracts in Middle Eastern countries dating back to 2014, RTX said.
Prosecutors alleged that Raytheon from 2012 to 2016 conspired to pay bribes to a high-level official within Qatar's Emiri Air Force in exchange for assistance in obtaining and retaining business from the country's military branch.
Raytheon was charged with conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspiring to violate the Arms Export Control Act.
It has agreed to pay a $252.3 million criminal fine and forfeit $36.7 million, although it would get a $7.4 million credit against the expected SEC-related settlement.
Under that agreement, the company would pay a $75 million fine, receive a $22.5 million credit based on the criminal penalty, and repay another $37.4 million, according to Raytheon's agreement with the Department of Justice.
Prosecutors have agreed to dismiss those charges after about three years if he meets the terms of the deferred prosecution agreement. The company must hire an independent compliance monitor during that time.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
