Corsa Coal Corporation, headquartered in Pennsylvania, mined, processed, and sold metallurgical coal to customers in the domestic and international steel industries. The company operated mines in Pennsylvania and Maryland and conducted business in foreign markets, including, at various times, Egypt and Turkey.
According to the documents in this case, between late 2016 until early 2020, certain of Corsa’s employees and agents engaged in a scheme to bribe Egyptian government officials in order to obtain and retain lucrative contracts to supply coal to the Egyptian state-owned coke company Al Nasr Company for Coke and Chemicals. As part of the scheme, Corsa paid approximately $4.8 million to an Egypt-based third-party intermediary who, in turn, paid bribes to Egyptian government officials, including the Chairman of Al Nasr. In all, Corsa secured approximately $143 million in coal contracts from Al Nasr and earned approximately $32.7 million in profits.
On March 8, 2023, the DOJ issued a letter to Corsa pursuant to the agency's FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy stating that the agency would decline to prosecute the company for violations of the FCPA despite the bribery committed by Corsa's employees. The DOJ cited Corsa's voluntary self-disclosure of the misconduct and its full cooperation and remediation. Under the terms of the declination, Corsa agreed to disgorge its profits from the scheme. However, the DOJ determined that Corsa was unable to disgorge the full amount of profits, so based on that independent analysis conducted by the DOJ and a forensic accounting firm, the DOJ concluded that paying disgorgement in excess of $1,200,000 would substantially threaten the continued viability of Corsa.
In related proceedings, two former employees of Corsa, Frederick Cushmore Jr. and Charles Hunter Hobson, were charged in separate enforcement actions for their role in the bribery scheme. Cushmore pled guilty but is yet to be sentenced, and Hobson is awaiting trial.
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