The Securities and Exchange Commission SEC announced Tuesday that Oracle will pay millions of dollars in fees to settle charges related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FCPA. Oracle will pay $15 million in penalties and $8 million in disgorgement. The SEC said in a press release that the tech company will cease and desist from committing violations of the anti-bribery, books and records, and internal accounting controls provisions of the FCPA.
The release said the company did not admit to or deny the SEC's allegations as part of the agreement.
The SEC said that Oracle subsidiaries in Turkey, India and the United Arab Emirates UAE have been alleged to have violated the FCPA by using slush funds between 2016 and 2019 to bribe foreign officials in exchange for business.
Turkey and UAE subsidiaries have been accused of paying for foreign officials to attend conferences, with some Turkey subsidiary employees allegedly using the slush funds to pay for officials' families to go with them or visit California on the side.
Michael Egbert, vice president of Oracle corporate communications, told FOX Business that the conduct outlined by the SEC is contrary to our core values and clear policies.
Oracle paid $2 million in 2012 without admitting or denying wrongdoing to settle SEC charges that the Indian subsidiary secretly set aside money from the company's books that was eventually used to make unauthorized payments to phony vendors in India, the SEC said in a press release.
The company moved its headquarters from California to Texas in late 2020, and reported total revenues of $11.4 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2023, up from $9.2 billion in the same period the previous fiscal year. Oracle said that it's net income fell from $2.46 billion to $1.55 billion.