Ex-Goldman Sachs director arraigned for ‘bribing’ Ghanaian officials

Asante Berko, a former Goldman Sachs executive director, has been arraigned for “bribing” Ghanaian government officials to secure a lucrative power plant contract for a client.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Berko appeared in federal court in Brooklyn, New York on Tuesday.

He pleaded not guilty to charges of bribing Ghanaian government officials to secure the power plant contract.

The arraignment of Berko, a dual citizen of the United States (US) and Ghana, comes after the banker fought his extradition from the United Kingdom (UK), where he worked at Goldman’s London subsidiary.

“He was arraigned before Vera Scanlon, US magistrate judge in the eastern district of New York and released on $600,000 bail,” a court spokesman said.

WSJ, however, said lawyers for Berko did not return a request for comment.

“The former employee left the firm over seven years ago and the firm withdrew from involvement in the transaction at issue,” a Goldman Sachs spokesperson said.

Berko was first charged by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a 2020 lawsuit of arranging $2.5 million in bribes to Ghanaian officials.

The alleged purpose of those bribes was to help a Turkish energy company win a power plant contract in Ghana.

“Berko personally paid more than $60,000 to members of the Ghanaian parliament and other government officials,” SEC said.

The Ghanaian settled the SEC civil case in 2021, agreeing to pay $329,000 as part of an agreement that did not require him to admit to the regulator’s claims.

In November 2022, federal prosecutors unsealed a criminal indictment charging him with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and money laundering, the same core conduct alleged in the prior SEC civil case.

According to prosecutors, the bribes Berko is accused of arranging took place between December 2014 and March 2017.

The prosecutors said at the time, Berko was an executive director in the Goldman subsidiary’s investment banking division and was working to secure a deal between Turkish Energy Company and the Ghanaian government for the construction and financing of a power plant in Ghana.

“The bribes he allegedly arranged included providing five Ghanaian officials with an all-expenses-paid trip to Turkey to view equipment for the power plant,” the prosecutors said.

“During the trip, the officials allegedly received $5,000 each. Berko and others discussed the payment of bribes extensively in emails.”

According to the prosecutors, Goldman compliance officials began scrutinising payments that were made as part of the transaction in 2015 but never discovered the bribes.

The prosecutors said the bank did not provide financing for the deal while Berko left the bank in 2017, the same year the power plant became operational.