Cognizant ready to pay $25 million USD to settle India bribery charges: SEC

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Cognizant ready to pay $25 million USD to settle India bribery charges: SEC
Cognizant ready to pay $25 million USD to settle India bribery charges: SEC

New Delhi : Major US IT player Cognizant will be paying 25 million US dollars to the US Security and Exchange Commission to settle its India bribery charges.

The two former executives have been charged for their roles in facilitating the payment of millions of dollars in bribe to an Indian government official, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) said.

Cognizant has agreed to pay USD 25 million to settle charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the SEC said.

The complaint alleges that in 2014, a senior Tamil Nadu official demanded a USD 2 million bribe from the construction firm responsible for building Cognizant's 2.7 million square foot campus in Chennai.

As alleged in the complaint, Cognizant's President Gordon Coburn and Chief Legal Officer Steven E Schwartz authorised the contractor to pay the bribe and directed their subordinates to conceal the bribe by doctoring the contractor's change orders.

The SEC also alleges that Cognizant authorised the construction firm to make two additional bribes totaling more than USD 1.6 million.

Cognizant allegedly used sham change order requests to conceal the payments it made to reimburse the firm, SEC said.