WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Monsanto Co. has been charged with bribing an Indonesian environmental official to get out of an environmental study, the Justice Department said Thursday.
However, the department said the company has agreed to take responsibility for the actions of its employees, adopt internal measures to comply with the law and cooperate with criminal and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations and pay $1 million.
If at the end of three years, the department said, Monsanto fulfills all its obligations, the prosecution will not be pursued.
A criminal complaint filed in Washington charges the St. Louis-based company, a global producer of technology and agricultural products, with violating the federal anti-bribery and false records laws.
In 2002, a Monsanto employee authorized a consulting firm to pay $50,000 to the senior Indonesian environmental official for a waiver of an environmental impact study to cultivate genetically altered crops, the department said. Monsanto later reimbursed the consulting company.
The senior official never authorized the repeal of the environmental impact study requirement, the department said.
