Lisbon, Sept. 4, 2024 (Lusa) - The Frente Cívica association said on Wednesday that it had asked the Attorney General to launch a criminal investigation into corruption against the consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which acknowledged paying bribes in Angola.
In a statement, the Civic Front said it had written to Lucília Gago so that, if an investigation has already been opened, ‘the Public Prosecutor's Office can report on the steps it has taken in this case’.
On 28 August, BCG acknowledged paying bribes to obtain business in Angola. According to an investigation by the US Department of Justice (DoJ), the bribes were paid through the Lisbon office.
‘Certain BCG employees in Portugal took steps to conceal the nature of the [bribed] agent's work for BCG when internal issues arose, including backdating contracts and falsifying the agent's purported work product,’ said the DoJ.
The facts made public by the US authorities ‘constitute with very high probability an offence of active corruption to the detriment of international trade’, the Civic Front pointed out.
‘This conduct must therefore be investigated and punished in Portugal, where it took place, holding not only the agents who carried out the acts investigated by the US authorities responsible but also the company itself, as part of its criminal liability,’ said the organisation.
According to a note published by BCG on its website, between 2011 and 2017, some employees ‘improperly paid third parties to ensure business deals’.
Frente Cívica emphasised that the company delivered bribes worth $4.3 million (€3.89 million) to "a figure with links to the Angolan state to obtain contracts (...) with the Ministry of Economy and the National Bank of Angola".
In return, BCG obtained contracts worth $22.5 million (€20.4 million), the organisation said.
‘On discovering this, BCG promptly self-reported the matter’ to the DoJ, reads the group's note, which “removed the individuals from the company and has since closed its office in Luanda, Angola”.
Because BCG took the initiative to report the case, it eventually reached an agreement with the DoJ.
The group said the DoJ had ‘declined to prosecute BCG (...) for conduct related to certain employee activities in Angola from 2011 to 2017’. This decision was justified by BCG's ‘voluntary self-disclosure, full cooperation and compliance improvements,’ it explained.
In this agreement, BCG will repay $14.4 million (€12.8 million), "which the DOJ calculated to reflect BCG's profits from the impacted work in Angola."
Paulo de Morais and João Paulo Batalha, president and vice-president of the Civic Front, signed the letter.
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