The United States Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday charged former executives at Deutsche Telekom’s Magyar Telekom unit with bribery and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The federal agency said three Magyar Telekom executives paid off Macedonian government officials as much as $6.29 million during 2005 and 2006 for “regulatory benefits” and to muscle one of its competitors out of the Macedonian wireless market, Reuters reported. The SEC also accused the executives of trying to pay off consultants and government officials in Montenegro with as much as $9.47 million to receive a government blessing for a planned Magyar Telekom acquisition. The Magyar Telekom executives named in the SEC filing are former CEO Elek Straub and “strategy executives” Tamas Morvai and Andras Balogh.
