Russia's Biggest Mobile Operator Settles With Us Investigators

AKIPRESS.COM - MTS, Russia's largest mobile operator, has agreed to pay $850m in criminal and civil fines to settle US investigations into alleged bribery, FT reports.

The company, which has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange, has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice, with a former subsidiary pleading guilty in federal court. It also consented to an order by the Securities and Exchange Commission that said MTS made at least $420m in payments to an official in Uzbekistan to obtain entry to the country's telecommunications market.

The investigation into the conduct from 2004 to 2012 had been previously disclosed by MTS, which said the $850m had been reserved in its results for the third quarter of 2018. "The company engaged in egregious misconduct for nearly a decade...