UK-based publishers, Macmillan, which operates through 350 companies in over 80 countries, has been debarred by the World Bank after admitting bribery in Sudan. The debarment is under the bank’s rules and lasts initially for 6 years, reducing to 3 for good behaviour, which involves appointing a compliance monitor.
Macmillan is fully owned by the Germany publishing giant Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck.
There are only sparse details of the unlawful payments, but it is clear that Macmillan admitted engaging in bribes between 2008 and 2009 in an attempt to get a contract from a Sudan trust fund to print textbooks for the education rehabilitation project in the south of the country. The fund had been set up by the World Bank in 2006 to finance the rebuilding of South Sudan’s economy, government, health and education systems devastated by decades of civil war.
We understand the the SFO are now investigating, so it is likely that we have not heard the last of this.
The World Bank press release can be found here. More information about the World Bank compliance monitoring proram can be found here.
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