Robert Bosch, the German engineering group, has agreed to pay the United States $36m to settle claims that two of its non-US subsidiaries shipped sensor products and software to China’s Huawei without the required licences.
The US Commerce Department announced the settlement on Wednesday. The goods, worth more than $70m, went out on over 100 occasions between 2020 and 2024, according to the agreement.
The $36m figure is the civil penalty Bosch agreed to pay the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, and the bureau’s own announcement confirms it.
It is worth pinning down because the case carries a second, smaller number that is easy to conflate with it: under a separate arrangement with the Department of Justice, Bosch agreed to disgorge profits, partially suspended, with an actual payment of roughly $3.6m. Two figures, two agencies, two different things.
The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!The conduct, by Bosch’s account, was not deliberate. The company said the violations were “unintentional”, and the structure of the resolution reflects a regulator treating it accordingly. Bosch self-disclosed the misconduct, and the Justice Department agreed to close its related investigation and decline to prosecute the company.
