PARIS/NEW YORK (Reuters) - French bank Societe Generale (SOGN.PA) will pay more than $1 billion to resolve criminal and civil charges in the United States and France for bribing Gaddafi-era Libyan officials and manipulating the Libor interest rate benchmark, U.S. authorities said on Monday.
The Paris-based bank is set to plead guilty in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, to resolve the foreign bribery case, the Justice Department said in an announcement.
A representative of SocGen in France did not immediately provide a comment on the Justice Department announcement.
The resolution is the first coordinated between U.S. and French authorities in a foreign bribery case, the Justice Department said.
“Today’s resolution ... sends a strong message that transnational corruption and manipulation of our markets will be met with a global and coordinated law enforcement response,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Cronan said in a statement.
The Justice Department penalties include a $585 million fine relating to a multi-year scheme to pay bribes to officials in Libya and $275 million for violations arising from its manipulation of Libor, the Justice Department said.
The bank has also agreed with the U.S. derivatives regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to pay $475 million for rigging Libor.
Earlier on Monday, SocGen said it had agreed to pay 250 million euros ($293 million) to the French treasury as part of the overall settlement. That fine will be deducted from
