Former company executives are suspected, among other things, of bribery, false registration and money laundering. • The fraudulent acts allegedly committed yielded enormous economic benefits on a large scale.
Housing and construction offices
Photo:
Joshua Joseph - Archive
The State Attorney's Office for Taxation and Economics announced today (Monday) the representatives of Shikun VeBinui, the subsidiary SBI Infrastructure, and the foreign subsidiary SBI Switzerland, as well as former company executives, that their prosecution is being considered subject to a hearing (each according to his share).
This is due to suspicion of committing serious economic offenses, which were committed during the promotion of the company's business outside Israel.
The offenses in question are bribery of foreign public employees, false registration in corporation documents, offenses under the Anti-Money Laundering Act and offenses under the Securities Act.
The affair is related to events that took place in the international activities of the Housing and Construction Group from July 2008 until the opening of the open investigation in February 2018. According to the suspicion, throughout this period - and even in previous years - Millions of shekels, in various countries in which it operated - in order to promote its business and increase its profitability.
The bribery was allegedly accompanied by an array of money laundering and false reporting and registration offenses, all through managers and former employees of the group, including senior executives.
False and misleading statements
According to the suspicion, the bribe payments paid by the Shikun VeBinui Group during the relevant period to foreign public employees amounted to many tens of millions of shekels each year, and accumulated to hundreds of millions of shekels throughout the period.
According to the State Attorney's Office, the culture of bribery has grown into a huge economic benefit to the Housing and Construction Group.
As stated, the granting of the bribe and its concealment were accompanied by false entries in the company's books.
Some of the bribe payments were made in cash not against receipts and another portion was given against the making of invoices or receipts, after which all the bribe expenses were ostensibly assimilated into the legitimate expenses of Housing and Construction.
In addition, the annual financial statements of Shikun VeBinui included a specific note dealing with the cash expenses incurred by the company against which no invoices or receipts were issued. The company and its managers knew that a large part of these expenses included bribes, but nevertheless stated no significant exposure to the group companies. According to the suspicion, these statements, as well as the statements regarding the effectiveness of the control procedures in the company, were false and misleading statements.