Beam Suntory Agrees To Pay $8 Million Bribery Fine

Beam Suntory, the drinks conglomerate that owns Jim Beam Bourbon, the Suntory family of Japanese Whiskies, the Cooley Distillery in Ireland and a clutch of popular Scotch whiskies, has agreed to pay $8 million in fines following a finding by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the company had engaged in bribery.

The SEC established that a distributor working for what was then Beam Global has bribed Indian government officials between 2006 and 2012 to advance the company’s plans to expand sales in that country. At the time, Beam Global was making a strong push in India; it was believed by some their reason for purchasing the Spanish distillery DYC was to use its under-utilized production capacity for export to India. Regulatory issues ultimately drove Beam to bottle its bourbon in India, starting in 2014.