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The world's largest international tobacco company said in a
statement it intended to cooperate with the investigation but
did not provide further details.
"The SFO confirms it is investigating suspicions of corruption
in the conduct of business by BAT p.l.c., its subsidiaries and
associated persons," Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said
in a statement on Tuesday.
The maker of brands including Dunhill and Lucky Strike said in
February last year it had appointed a law firm to investigate
allegations of historic misconduct in Africa and that it was
liaising with the SFO.
BAT said then it was aware of some of the allegations and had
looked into them, but was bringing in outside lawyers given the
number and nature of the allegations and its zero tolerance of
corruption anywhere in the world.
The 2016 move came after a November 2015 BBC program described
cases of BAT employees bribing officials in East African
countries including Rwanda and Burundi in an effort to undermine
anti-smoking laws. The BBC cited internal documents provided by
whistleblowing former employee Paul Hopkins.
Spokeswomen for BAT and the SFO declined to say which countries
were covered by the investigation.
Earlier this year, BAT said it had created a board subcommittee
to monitor matters relating to the investigation between board
meetings. It also said it had started a project in 2016 to
review and strengthen its global compliance procedures.
BAT initially appointed law firms Linklaters and Slaughter and
May to investigate the allegations of misconduct and is now just
working with the latter.
Shares in BAT, which tumbled 12 percent in the previous two
sessions following a proposal by the U.S. government to cut
nicotine in cigarettes, were 1 percent higher at 1039 GMT.
The London-based company last week unseated Marlboro maker
Philip Morris International <PM.N> as the world's largest
international tobacco firm, following its $49 billion takeover
of Reynolds American.
The world's biggest tobacco company is state-owned China
National Tobacco Corporation.
(Additional reporting by Justin George Varghese and Arathy S
Nair in Bengaluru; editing by David Clarke)
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