Two former executives at New Jersey-based construction management company Louis Berger have been sentenced for their roles in a scheme to secure government contracts by bribing foreign officials, US prosecutors said. James McClung, 60, was sentenced on Thursday by US District Judge Mary Cooper in Trenton, New Jersey, to one year in prison. Richard Hirsch, 62, was sentenced by the judge on Friday to two years of probation and fined $10,000.
Their sentencing capped an investigation into what the US Justice Department called a long-running bribery scheme at Louis Berger to secure government construction management contracts by bribing officials in India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Kuwait. The probe led to Louis Berger, a $1 billion privately-held company based in Morristown, New Jersey, agreeing in July 2015 to pay $17.1 million as part of a deferred prosecution agreement and retain a compliance monitor for three years.
Louis Berger in a statement emphasized that McClung had not worked at the company since 2012. The company said it had accepted full responsibility for the actions of its former executives. A lawyer for Hirsch did not respond to a request for comment. A lawyer for McClung declined to comment. Prosecutors said from 1998 to 2010, Louis Berger and its employees orchestrated $3.9 million in bribe payments to foreign officials.
Those employees included McClung, a senior vice president from Dubai responsible for its India and Vietnam operations, and Hirsch, a senior vice president from the Philippines responsible for its operations there and in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Both men pleaded guilty in July 2015 to two counts including that they violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
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