A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida recently returned a superseding indictment charging UK-based voting machine company SGO Corporation Limited (commonly known as “Smartmatic”) for its alleged role in a bribery and money laundering scheme involving a Philippine government official and contracts related to the 2016 Philippine national elections. The superseding indictment, which was filed on October 16, 2025, charges Smartmatic, three of its or its subsidiaries’ executives, and a former government official for their roles in the bribery and money laundering scheme that resulted in payments of allegedly at least $1 million in bribes to the former government official.
According to federal prosecutors, the bribes were paid to Juan Andres Donato Bautista, the former Chairman of the Commission of Election (“COMELEC”) of the Republic of the Philippines between 2015 and 2018 in order to obtain and retain contracts (worth approximately $182 million) with COMELEC to provide voting machines and related services for the Philippine national elections in 2016. Smartmatic allegedly funded the bribes using slush funds that were created from over-invoicing or inflating the cost of each voting machine provided. The co-conspirators allegedly attempted to conceal the payments by referring to the slush funds and bribe payments using coded language in their communications such as “rush fee” or “extra fee.” In furtherance of the scheme, former Smartmatic executives Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez, Jorge Miguel Vasquez, and Elie Moreno also allegedly conspired with others to create fraudulent contracts and sham loan agreements in an effort to disguise the corrupt payments to Bautista, and allegedly made the payments through a network of offshore and domestic bank accounts in Asia, Europe, and the United States, including bank accounts in the Southern District of Florida.
The superseding indictment charges Smartmatic, Piñate, and Vasquez with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and charges Piñate and Vasquez with a violation of the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA. In addition, Smartmatic, Bautista, Piñate, Vasquez, and Moreno were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and three separate counts of money laundering for their roles in the scheme.
Bautista, Piñate, Vasquez, and Moreno were initially indicted in August 2024. In April 2025, shortly after President Trump issued his pause on all FCPA cases and following a review of the case by the Department of Justice, federal prosecutors informed the court they planned to proceed to trial.
DOJ Press Release | Superseding Indictment