ADM to pay $54m to settle bribery charges Archer Daniels Midland has agreed to pay $54.3m to resolve civil and criminal charges that a subsidiary bribed government officials in Ukraine in return for tax refunds. The deal with US authorities ends an embarrassing chapter for the company, which has sought to polish its image after pleading guilty in a high-profile price-fixing scandal in the 1990s. However, it could portend increasing scrutiny of the global grain trading business, as previous actions under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act have led to industrywide sweeps. New York-listed ADM is one of the world's biggest agricultural traders and processors, handling commodities from corn to cocoa. US authorities accused Alfred C Toepfer International, a Hamburg-based subsidiary, of paying $22m to Ukrainian officials to recover more than $100m in unpaid tax refunds. In one scheme, Toepfer made payments to a shipping company in the port of Odessa for artificially inflated invoices, a piece of which was passed as bribes to Ukrainian officials, the US Securities and Exchange Commission alleged. One set of disbursements was disguised "as prepayments for feed barley," its complaint said. In another, the company drafted fake contracts with an insurance company that included false premiums that were paid to Ukraine officials. Toepfer's Ukraine office pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA and agreed to pay $17.8m in criminal fines, the Department of Justice said Friday. ADM also agreed to pay $36.5m to settle the SEC's civil charges of failing to prevent the illicit payments. Toepfer also paid an unspecified penalty to German authorities. "ADM's lacklustre anti-bribery controls enabled its subsidiaries to get preferential refund treatment by paying off foreign government officials," said Gerald Hodgkins, associate director in the SEC enforcement division. The alleged bribes went on from 2002 to 2008 despite concerns raised inside ADM, including an email that questioned potentially illegal "donations" made to recover the tax refunds, authorities said. Patricia Woertz, ADM chief executive since 2006, said the company hired outside law and accounting firms to investigate the transactions after becoming aware of them in 2008. "The conduct that led to this settlement was regrettable, but I believe we handled our response in the right way, and that the steps we took, including self-reporting, underscore our commitment to conducting business ethically and responsibly," she said. Certain Toepfer executives were fired and ADM voluntarily co-operated with the SEC and DoJ, the complaint said. ADM in the 1990s pleaded guilty to charges it fixed lysine and citric acid prices in a case that resulted in prison terms for three former executives. In 2004, ADM paid $400m to settle a class-action lawsuit over sales of high-fructose corn syrup. The investigation leading up to the cases was the basis for a popular book and film, The Informant.