Ericsson company is to pay a $1 billion fine admitting to bribing government authorities during 17 years.

Multinational networking and telecom company will compensate for conducting illegal activity and pay the penalty to US regulators.

US Department of Justice and Ericsson agreed as part of the deal that the company will settle for resolving charges of violating the anti-bribery, books and records, and internal controls provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act during three years. In case Ericsson fulfills the conditions, the DoJ will not bring criminal charges and the company will pay nearly half of an amount of the fine.

Ericsson confirmed that third parties were involved helping to access government officials. Such countries as China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Djibuti and Kuwait were affected by bribery schemes which local authorities took part into.

The appointment of an independent compliance monitor has been made.