This morning Herbalife (NYSE: HLF) was charged criminally for paying bribes to Chinese officials. The action is related to criminal liability under FCPA (U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act).

The company disclosed in an SEC filing today:

  • Herbalife violated the books and records and internal controls provisions of the FCPA
  • The company will pay $123 million as a settlement with the SEC and DOJ, and this amount has been included in current liabilities on the June 30, 2020 financial statemetns
  • If the company doesn’t have any other violations for 3 years, this deferred charge will be dismissed

Herbalife disclosed in May that it had entered into a settlement agreement with the government. Today’s court proceedings make it official.

It’s fun to see pyramid schemes being held to account, even if it doesn’t happen often enough.

One Comment

  1. Nancy Smith 09/02/2020 at 9:52 pm - Reply

    Tracy, I came across your site while researching the companies I had heard about while I listened to Season 1 of the podcast “The Dream” on Stitcher, which was an 11-part MLM expose. If you are not familiar with it, I think you would enjoy it. The last few episodes deal with the politicization of MLMs, particularly as a close Amway relative has a seat in the Cabinet, and a former chair of the FTC was hired by Herbalife.

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