Published on :
The CEO of the Swedish telecoms giant admitted Tuesday, February 15, acts of corruption in the activities of Ericsson in Iraq, which caused its shares to fall on the stock market.
A fall of 14.5% at noon on February 16. Ericsson’s shares had not experienced such a drop in one day since 2017. It must be said that the statements of the CEO of the Swedish telecom giant do not really go unnoticed. He acknowledges that some people linked to the Swedish group were able to make payments that ended up in the pockets of the Islamic State organization in Iraq.
The suspicions come from an internal investigation which dates from 2019, and which highlights certain transactions for road transport, in sectors controlled by the terrorist organization. In a press release published on Tuesday February 15, Ericsson admits to having identified “ evidence of wrongdoing in corruption committed by employees, vendors and suppliers.
This discovery brings back very bad memories for Ericsson. In 2019, the group had paid more than a billion dollars to the American justice system to settle bribery cases in China, Indonesia and Djibouti.
For Iraq, the investigation did not make it possible to identify the direct implication of an employee of Ericsson in particular, but its director assures that several people were disembarked from the group, and that other disciplinary measures were taken.
► To read also: The Lafarge group can be prosecuted for “complicity in crimes against humanity” in Syria