According to an agreed upon statement of facts, between 2005 and 2010, Bio-Rad’s French subsidiary (“Bio-Rad SNC”), with the assistance of an agent (“Agent 1”), entered into agreements with three offshore companies which purported to provide extensive services for Bio-Rad’s operations in Russia. Bio-Rad SNC allegedly paid the offshore companies 15-30% commissions for services rendered. Despite the payments, the statement of facts alleges that the offshore companies had no employees (other than Agent 1) and were incapable of offering the services they agreed to provide in their contracts with Bio-Rad SNC.
The DOJ alleges that various managers of Bio-Rad SNC approved the agreements with the offshore companies, knowing that it was highly likely portions of the inflated commissions fees were used as bribes. The managers discussed the contracts with the offshore companies in code and issued payments in amounts under $200,000 to avoid additional internal controls approvals. As a result of the alleged bribes, Bio-Rad won 100% of the government contracts when Agent 1 was involved and lost its first major contract with the Russian government shortly after Agent 1 had been terminated in 2010.
