Bribery Case Summary

Economic crime continues to be a significant issue for the engineering and construction industry. In the beginning of this year, January 22, 2015, another violation of the FCPA took place. SEC encountered a FCPA case within the Engineering industry. Bribery case was against Walid Hatoum and Post, Buckley, Schuh and Jernigan (PBSJ) Corporation. PBSJ is one of Florida’s largest engineering designs firm; now known as The Atkins North America Holdings Corporation. The investigation was performed by two FCPA unit members. According to the SEC press release, SEC charged a former officer at a Tampa, Florida based engineering and construction firm, for violating the FCPA by offering and authorizing bribes and employment to foreign officials to secure Qatari government contracts. The SEC discovered that Mr. Hatoum violated the …show more content…
Hatoum is a former employee and President of PBSJ Corporation, an engineering and general contraction company that provides services in international markets. In 2009, PBSJ obtained two multi-million dollar government contracts, a light rail transit project in Qatari and hotel resort development project in Morocco. The Qatari Diar Project contract was worth $35.6 million and the Morocco Project was worth $25 million. Mr. Hatoum helped achieve those contracts by offering funnel funds to a company owned and controlled by a foreign official. Hatoum offered payment of foreign official in the form of agency fee to secure the Morocco Project.
“Hatoum offered and authorized nearly $1.4 million in bribes disguised as ‘agency fees’ intended for a foreign official who used an alias to communicate confidential information that assisted PBSJ,” said Kara Brockmeyer, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s FCPA Unit. “PBSJ ignored multiple red flags that should have enabled other officers and employees to uncover the bribery scheme at an earlier stage. But once discovered, the company self-reported the potential FCPA violations and cooperated