Irantzu Diez Gamboa de Imagina US
The Imagina Group announced that it reached an agreement with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York to resolve its investigation into improper payments made more than three years ago for media and marketing rights to certain World Cup soccer qualifying matches in the Central American and Caribbean regions.
As part of the agreement, no charges are being brought against Spain-based Imagina Media Audiovisual SL, which received credit for its continuing and substantial cooperation with the government’s investigation.
This resolution, which comes after Imagina’s extensive cooperation with the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation of the matter, enables Imagina to move forward as a stronger company.
The disposition resolves allegations against the company that has been a matter of public record since the DOJ unsealed a Superseding Indictment in December 2015 in its investigation relating to FIFA. At that time, the company learned that Roger Huguet and Fabio Tordin, former executives at the company’s US affiliate, had pled guilty to their role in the scheme and that a former senior executive of the company was alleged to have been involved. All three have been terminated and have not been involved in the management of Imagina Group or any of its subsidiaries since December 2015. An extensive internal investigation confirmed that responsibility for the misconduct in this matter was limited to the actions of these three individuals.
As part of the resolution, a U.S.-based affiliate of the company, US Imagina, LLC, which is not an active contracting entity, pled guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The company will pay a criminal fine of US$12.883 million, and in addition, US$6.65 million will be returned to the affected soccer federations and US$5.279 million in profits associated with the conduct will be forfeited.
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