South Africa corruption case costs Swiss firm additional CHF140m

ABB paid over CHF1 million in bribes to secure a South African power plant contract. © Keystone / Walter Bieri

Swiss engineering company ABB has been ordered to pay 2.5 billion South African rand (CHF134 million) in reparations and has been fined CHF4 million ($4.2 million) by Swiss prosecutors for industrial-scale bribery in South Africa.

The cost of bribing South African officials to gain lucrative contracts is adding up for ABB. In 2020 the company had to pay a South African power company more than CHF100 million in compensation.

The latest financial penalties centre around a contract that ABB won in 2015 to help build a coal-fired power plant in South Africa.

“ABB South Africa received orders worth at least $200 million with bribes of at least CHF1.3 million,” said the Swiss Office of the Attorney General (OAG) on Friday.

The CHF4 million Swiss fine was imposed on ABB for failing to take “all necessary and reasonable organisational precautions to prevent bribery payments to foreign public officials”.

The OAG said it had not imposed the maximum CHF5 million criminal penalty as the company had cooperated with its probe.

The investigation of ABB was carried out jointly by Swiss, South African, United States and German prosecutors.