Transport Logistics International (TLI), a Maryland-based company that provides services for the transportation of nuclear materials to customers in the United States and abroad, will pay $2 million and enter into a deferred prosecution agreement to settle federal criminal charges in connection with a scheme that involved the bribery an official at a subsidiary of Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation.

TLI was represented by Thomas Buchanan of Winston & Strawn in Washington, D.C.

Three individuals have been charged for their alleged roles in the bribery scheme.

TLI entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department in connection with a criminal information filed in the District of Maryland charging the company with conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

In the deferred prosecution agreement, TLI and the Department agreed that, because of the company’s financial inability to pay the penalty calculated under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, the appropriate criminal penalty is $2 million.

As part of the agreement, TLI also committed to cooperate fully with the Department’s ongoing investigation, and to continue to implement a compliance and ethics program designed to prevent and detect violations of the FCPA and other anti-corruption laws throughout its operations.

In reaching the resolution with the Department, TLI received full credit for its substantial cooperation with the Department’s investigation and for engaging in remedial measures, including terminating the employment of all employees engaged in the misconduct.

“Bribery of foreign officials not only distorts markets and undermines democratic institutions — it can also pervert the incentives of those who are in a position to safeguard the public, as it did in this case involving the transportation of nuclear material,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General John Cronan.  “Today’s resolution, along with the related charges against the corporate executives and the Russian official in this matter, underscore the Department’s continued commitment to holding both companies and individuals accountable for their roles in corruption-related crimes and for breaching the public’s trust.”

Federal officials alleged in a statement of facts that TLI conspired with others to corruptly pay more than $1.7 million to offshore bank accounts associated with shell companies, at the direction of, and for the benefit of, Vadim Mikerin, a Russian official at JSC Techsnabexport (TENEX), a subsidiary of Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation.

The bribe payments were made to help TLI secure improper business advantages and obtain and retain business with TENEX.

In order to effectuate and conceal the bribe payments, TLI executives and others caused fake invoices to be prepared, purportedly from TENEX to TLI, that described services that were never provided.

TLI then wired payments for those purported services to shell companies in Latvia, Cyprus and Switzerland to further the bribery scheme.

On June 17, 2015, TLI co-president Daren Condrey pled guilty to conspiracy to violate the FCPA and commit wire fraud.

On August 31, 2015, Mikerin pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering involving violations of the FCPA, and Mikerin was sentenced to 48 months in prison on Dec. 15, 2015.

On January 12, an 11-count indictment was unsealed against TLI co-president Mark Lambert, which charged Lambert with one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA and to commit wire fraud, seven counts of violating the FCPA, two counts of wire fraud and one count of international promotion money laundering.