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Och-Ziff to Pay Shareholders $29 Million to Settle Bribery Suit

Och-Ziff to Pay Shareholders $29 Million to Settle Bribery Suit

(Bloomberg) -- Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC agreed to pay $28.8 million to settle a shareholder lawsuit in which it was accused of misleading investors about violations of U.S. laws against foreign bribery, according to a court filing.

A U.S. judge in Manhattan last month allowed the shareholders to sue as a group. The settlement, disclosed in a filing Tuesday, requires court approval. The payment works out to be about 41 cents a share for the class. Och-Ziff was unchanged at $1.43 at 12:45 p.m. in New York.

The shareholders accused Och-Ziff of concealing violations of foreign bribery laws as it tried to secure capital from the Libyan Investment Authority and in connection with investments it made in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The lawsuit was filed in 2014 and covers investors who owned Och-Ziff shares from February 2012 to April 2014.

Och-Ziff entered a deferred prosecution agreement in the U.S. and had a subsidiary plead guilty in a related federal criminal inquiry in 2016.

The case is Menaldi v Och-Ziff, 14-cv-3251, U.S. Southern District of New York.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christian Berthelsen in New York at cberthelsen1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider

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