Walmart Inc., a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Arkansas, was a global retailer whose shares were registered with the SEC and traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Walmart operated in many countries through a variety of subsidiaries, including the subsidiaries in Mexico, China, Brazil, and India implicated in this case.
According to the documents in this case, from 2000 through 2011, Walmart’s subsidiaries in Brazil, China, India, and Mexico operated without a system of sufficient anti-corruption-related internal accounting controls despite Walmart's knowledge of the controls' inadequacy. The failure to implement sufficient controls allowed an environment in which third-party intermediaries hired by some of Walmart's foreign subsidiaries made improper payments to government officials in order to obtain store permits and licenses. Additionally, when Walmart learned of certain anti-corruption risks, the company neither investigated the allegations in a satisfactory manner nor mitigated the known risks until at least 2011.
On June 20, 2019, Walmart entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the DOJ. Under the terms of the agreement, the DOJ ordered Walmart to pay a fine of $137,955,249 and to hire an independent compliance monitor for a term of two years. In deciding to enter into a non-prosecution agreement with Walmart, the DOJ cited the company's cooperation and remedial measures. However, the DOJ did not give the company credit for voluntarily reporting the misconduct to the department. As part of the agreement, Walmart's Brazilian subsidiary, WMT Brasilia S.a.r.l., pleaded guilty to violations of the books and records provisions of the FCPA in a separate proceeding.
In a related administrative proceeding initiated on June 20, 2019, the SEC ordered Walmart to cease and desist violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions of the FCPA. The SEC further ordered Walmart to pay disgorgement of $119,647,735 plus prejudgment interest of $25,043,437 and to report on the status of the company's remediation and implementation of anti-corruption-related compliance measures for a term of two years.
