Report : VimpelCom Nears $775 Mln U.S. Bribery Settlement

(RTTNews) - VimpelCom Ltd. (VIP), a provider of telecommunications services, is in talks to pay about $775 million to settle U.S. allegations it paid bribes in Uzbekistan to win business, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter.

The Amsterdam-based company's resolution with the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission could be announced in January, the report said.

Separately, The law firm of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP announces that class action litigation has been brought on behalf of investors who purchased or otherwise acquired the securities of VimpelCom, Ltd. between June 30, 2011 and November 2, 2015, inclusive.

VimpelCom provides telecommunications services under various brand names in Italy, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Algeria, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

The complaint alleged that throughout the Class Period, defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: VimpelCom had paid tens of millions of dollars to a company controlled by Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the president of Uzbekistan; the payments to Ms. Karimova were unlawful bribes intended to secure VimpelCom's access to Uzbekistan's telecommunications market.

On March 12, 2014, VimpelCom announced that it was facing investigations by both the Securities and Exchange Commission and Dutch authorities related to its operations in Uzbekistan. Then, on March 18, 2014, VimpelCom reported that it was the focus of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice related to the Company's operations in Uzbekistan.

On August 13, 2015, U.S. authorities reportedly had asked their European counterparts to seize roughly $1 billion in assets in a wide-ranging criminal probe of alleged corruption by VimpelCom and two other companies, Mobile TeleSystems PJSC and TeliaSonera AB, for paying hundreds of millions of dollars to businesses controlled by Ms. Karimova in order to secure wireless spectrum in Uzbekistan.

On November 3, 2015, VimpelCom announced that it had set aside $900 million for litigation costs in connection with U.S. and Dutch investigations into the Company's operations in Uzbekistan.