Asante Berko, a former banker at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was detained on suspicion of orchestrating payments to Ghanaian officials while working for the investment bank, according to Bloomberg.
Berko is accused of participating in a bribery scheme that benefited Goldman, himself, and a Turkish energy company that wanted to construct a power plant in Ghana in a six-count August 2020 indictment that was unsealed last week in federal court in Brooklyn, New York. At least two Ghanaian officials and four other people are also named in the indictment.
The SEC earlier sued Asante Berko for the same behavior.
After the case was filed in 2020, foreign bribery charges were made public.
The Wall Street Journal reported in June 2021 that Mr. Berko had settled a charge made by American regulators that he had orchestrated the payment of millions of dollars in bribes to Ghanaian officials in order to aid a client in obtaining a power plant contract.
According to court documents, Mr. Berko was ordered to pay around $329,000 to settle the lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission without acknowledging or disputing the regulator’s claims.
The fine included interest and represented what the regulators claim to be the net earnings he made as a result of the alleged bribery scheme.
At the time, Mr. Berko’s attorney, Carl Loewenson Jr., a partner at the law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP, said, “Mr. Berko is delighted to put this matter behind him.”
A request for response from the SEC was not immediately complied with.
In a civil case filed by the SEC in April 2020, Mr. Berko was accused of helping a Turkish energy business secure a contract to build a power plant in Ghana by facilitating bribes worth up to $4.5 million. According to the SEC’s case, he personally paid at least $66,000 to members of the Ghanaian parliament, infringing on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
According to a source with knowledge of the situation, Aksa Energy, a Turkish energy business, was implicated. According to the SEC, the Istanbul-based business paid bribes to Ghanaian officials by passing money through an intermediary. A message asking for comment was not immediately answered by the business.
According to the SEC’s lawsuit, Mr. Berko, a citizen of the United States who departed Goldman Sachs in 2016, attempted to conceal the plan from Goldman’s compliance officers. The Turkish company failed to clarify the position of the intermediate firm, according to the SEC, so the bank—which was not identified in court documents—withdrew from the project.
According to a Goldman Sachs spokeswoman, the firm cooperated completely with the SEC investigation and that the compliance team at the time took “proper steps.”
The SEC and Mr. Berko reached an agreement on a penalty on Wednesday, which is a significant reduction from the punishment the commission had recommended when its civil complaint was first launched.
The SEC said in a complaint made in 2020 that the former Goldman banker should pay a civil penalty, disgorgement of proceeds from the alleged scheme, interest, and a penalty. There was no civil penalty included in the agreement made on Wednesday.