Comcel’s FCPA Deal Shows How a Decade-Long Bribery Case Reemerged & Finally Ended

Key Takeaways

• DPA Resolution: Comcel and its parent Millicom reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice resolving a long-running FCPA investigation that began with a voluntary self-disclosure in 2015.
• Joint Venture Constraints: The alleged misconduct occurred between 2012 and 2018 while Comcel operated as a joint venture that Millicom majority-owned but did not control, limiting Millicom’s ability to fully investigate and self-report the conduct at the time.
• Penalties and Resolution: The resolution includes a $60 million criminal fine and $58.2 million in forfeiture, along with a two-year DPA, shorter than the standard three-year term, and no corporate monitor.
• Cooperation and Remediation: DOJ granted maximum cooperation credit based on Millicom’s extensive cooperation and remediation after gaining full operational control in 2021, including personnel changes, enhanced compliance, and an ephemeral messaging policy that preserves and analyzes disappearing messages.

Deep Dive

Comunicaciones Celulares (better known as Comcel), the company behind TIGO Guatemala, has wrapped up a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation that has managed to outlast joint-venture partners, ownership structures, and even an earlier DOJ case closure. The company’s newly finalized deferred prosecution agreement brings more than $118 million in fines and forfeiture, and a close to a decade-long saga that proves, once again, that FCPA matters rarely fade quietly into the night just because companies hope they will.

The conduct at the center of the case took place between 2012 and 2018, when Comcel was jointly owned by Millicom International Cellular and the Panamanian company Telecomunicaciones Digitales. Millicom held 55 percent of the venture, but not the control, which rested with the minority shareholder.

During that time, according to the DOJ, TIGO Guatemala allegedly engaged in a wide-ranging bribery campaign aimed at pushing through favorable legislation, including payments allegedly delivered in duffel bags via helicopter. (There are faster ways to deliver cash in politics, but certainly not more cinematic.) The company held roughly 40–50% of Guatemala’s mobile telecommunications market during those years.

Millicom first approached U.S. authorities in 2015 with concerns about what was happening inside the joint venture. The problem was that it didn’t actually control the joint venture, or have the access needed to fully investigate it. That meant Millicom could tell the DOJ something was wrong but couldn’t provide the full story.

The DOJ acknowledged the self-report and gave Millicom full cooperation credit later on, but the limited visibility meant the disclosure couldn’t qualify for a declination. It was the compliance equivalent of showing up to a book report with only half the pages in your hands.

For a brief moment, it looked like the matter had resolved itself. DOJ closed its investigation in 2018. But two years later, after finding additional evidence on its own, the department reopened the case. Then, in 2021, Millicom acquired full ownership of Comcel, finally gaining the access it had lacked for nearly a decade. A subpoena arrived in 2022, and cooperation began anew, this time with the kind of insight that makes regulators significantly more receptive and significantly less skeptical.

The result speaks for itself. Comcel will pay a $60 million fine and forfeit $58.2 million, with DOJ granting a 50 percent discount off the bottom of the sentencing guidelines range, the maximum allowed. A two-year deferred prosecution agreement replaces the more common three-year term, and DOJ opted not to require a corporate monitor.

For a case that spanned continents, ownership battles, and shifting access to information, the finish line is about as gentle as the DOJ ever makes them.

How Cooperation Shaped the Resolution

The department credited Millicom’s remediation efforts, especially after gaining control in 2021. Those efforts included personnel changes, expanded training, and significant compliance enhancements. One detail DOJ made a point of spotlighting was the company’s adoption of an ephemeral-messaging preservation system. In an era where prosecutors know how often misconduct hides in disappearing chats, Millicom’s policy appears to have landed exactly where DOJ wanted it—front and center, and clearly functional.

The DPA also includes a detail that nods to the DOJ’s latest enforcement priorities. Earlier this year, Attorney General Pamela Bondi instructed prosecutors to prioritize cases with links to cartels or transnational criminal organizations. While Comcel’s conduct was not cartel-driven, the DPA notes that some bribe money originated from narco-trafficking proceeds, a detail that now carries greater weight under DOJ’s revised lens.

In February, President Trump issued an executive order pressing pause on new FCPA enforcement for 180 days while the DOJ re-evaluated its approach. That pause culminated in June, when the department announced it was resuming foreign-bribery investigations, but with a dramatically narrowed focus on cases tied to national security, U.S. economic competitiveness, major corruption schemes, or organized crime. Nearly half the DOJ’s FCPA matters were closed during the review, and officials publicly emphasized that future enforcement would concentrate on industries where unfair foreign competition or market-distorting bribery harms U.S. interests.

This creates an unusual backdrop for the Comcel resolution. Even as the DOJ narrows its enforcement priorities and closes other matters, this decade-long case reached the finish line, pause or no pause. The resolution also shows the two sides of voluntary self-disclosure. One being the upside of cooperation credit and reduced penalties, and the other being the downside of stepping forward before you have full access to the evidence.

Even after DOJ closed its initial investigation, the matter reappeared years later with new ownership, new records, and new facts. Comcel may finally have its conclusion, but the winding path to get there underscores a reality that companies with international joint ventures know too well i.e., your ability to report the full truth depends entirely on how much of that truth you can actually see.

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