McKinsey has agreed to pay $122mn to authorities in the US and South Africa over its role in a sprawling corruption scandal during the administration of former South African president Jacob Zuma.
The consulting group paid bribes to win millions of dollars of consulting work with South African state-owned companies between 2012 and 2016, according to a deferred prosecution agreement announced by the US justice department on Thursday.
One of McKinsey’s former senior partners in Johannesburg, Vikas Sagar, has also pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to violate the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, prosecutors said on Thursday. The plea was entered in a US court in 2022 but had been kept under seal while the investigation continued.