Forced to publicly acknowledge possible bribes in Iraq, some of which could have ended up in the coffers of the jihadist group Islamic State (EI), ericssonthe Swedish giant of telecommunicationsannounced this Wednesday that he is again in the crosshairs of American justice.
The stock market title of the world number 2 of the telecommunicationsvery shaken in recent weeks, fell this Wednesday morning more than 11% on the Stockholm floor.
This issue gained notoriety last month, prior to the publication of a wide research journalism carried out by the International Consortium of Journalists of Research (ICIJ), released on Sunday.
This forced ericsson to publish in turn the conclusions of a research internal, identifying acts typifiable as corruption over many years in the group’s activities in Iraq.
This includes suspicions about possible bribe payments to be able to drive on roads in areas under IS control, which could have ended up in the pockets of the jihadist group.
In the 2011-2019 period, its own auditors identified “a posteriori” “serious violations of the group’s legal and business ethics rules”, it had recognized ericsson in mid-February, in anticipation of the publication of the research of the ICIJ, released on Sunday by 30 media outlets that comprise it.
Several collaborators were fired by the group after this internal audit, which until now has not been made public.
Although, according to ericssonthe research it did not conclude that any of its employees had been “directly involved in the financing of terrorist organizations.”
These revelations put the Swedish “flagship” in very particular difficulties, given that it has already had problems with the American justice system and its fearsome “universal jurisdiction” in numerous cases.
In December 2019, ericsson had paid one billion dollars (900 million euros) to the US justice system to close corruption proceedings in five other countries (Egypt, China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Kuwait), within the framework of a conciliation agreement.
Last month, the group had specified that it had already transmitted its research internal law relating to Iraq to US justice in the same context.
But the US Department of Justice (DoJ) on Tuesday warned ericsson that he considered “insufficient” the information provided.
On the other hand, he argues that the number 2 in the world in teams of telecommunications has “violated the settlement agreement” by failing to demonstrate transparency since its conclusion two years ago.
ericssonwhich maintains “communication with the DoJ”, believes that “at this point it is premature to predict the verdict in this case.”
In an emergency teleconference, the CEO of the group, which has some 100,000 employees, declined to assess what the financial risk to the company might be.
“We take all of this very seriously,” said Börje Ekholm, citing the group’s “cultural” efforts to combat any form of corruption.
From the first announcements of ericsson In this case, the group’s shares have lost more than a third of their value.
After having lost speed in the mid-2010s, especially due to the great advance of the Chinese Huawei, which stole the position of world number 1 in the sector, ericsson In 2017, he launched an extensive plan that allowed him to recover to a large extent.
Currently, the group is in a fierce global battle with Huawei and the Finnish company Nokia to implement 5G networks around the world, in the context of geopolitical tensions between the United States and China over this sector.
It is one of the rare technological domains in which there is no American heavyweight, after the purchase of Lucent by Alcatel, in turn gobbled up by Nokia at the end of 2016.
