BHP Billiton to pay $25m Beijing Olympics corruption fine

BHP Billiton has agreed to pay $25m (£16m) to settle charges from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to hospitality provided by the company at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

The company said: “While BHP Billiton made efforts at the time to address the risks related to inviting government officials to the Olympics, the controls it relied upon were insufficient to satisfy the civil books and records and internal accounting controls requirements of the US statute.”

The SEC said that the guests were mainly from Africa and Asia, and were offered up to four days of hospitality at the event, which included tickets, luxury hotel stay and excursions with a total value of between $12,000 and $16,000.

“BHP Billiton footed the bill for foreign government officials to attend the Olympics while they were in a position to help the company with its business or regulatory endeavours,” said Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC’s division of enforcement said in a statement.

_{Allegations relate back to Beijing games}

“BHP Billiton recognized that inviting government officials to the Olympics created a heightened risk of violating anti-corruption laws, yet the company failed to implement sufficient internal controls to address that heightened risk,” he added.

According to the SEC, the Anglo-Australian mining company neither admitted, or denied the findings of the investigation.