By Jack Queen

(Reuters) -Three executives of voting technology company Smartmatic have been charged with funneling $1 million in bribes to a former Philippine election official to secure the country’s business, according to U.S. federal prosecutors in Florida.

Smartmatic’s president and co-founder, Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez, 49, and two co-defendants were charged with foreign bribery and money laundering alongside a former chairman of the Philippine Commission on Elections, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday.

Smartmatic was not charged and is not accused of wrongdoing. It said in a statement the indicted employees have been placed on leave.

“No voter fraud has been alleged and Smartmatic is not indicted,” the statement said.

Lawyers for the defendants could not immediately be identified.

The indictment comes as Smartmatic is suing Fox Corp and conservative commentators for billions of dollars in damages for allegedly defaming it with false claims that its machines rigged the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

It is unclear how the indictment could affect those cases, but Fox could try to use evidence from the criminal case to bolster its defense.

Federal prosecutors said in a press release that Pinate conspired with two other Smartmatic executives to pay $1 million in bribes to Juan Andres Donato Bautista, 60, the former chairman of the Philippine Commission on Elections, or COMELEC.

Prosecutors said the bribes were paid through a slush fund created by over-invoicing voting machine costs for the 2016 Philippine elections and then disguised in financial documents using coded language.

Bautista served on COMELEC from 2015 to 2017, according to the agency’s website. A representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Smartmatic is suing Fox News for $2.7 billion in damages for allegedly defaming it with coverage claiming its voting machines may have helped rig the 2020 U.S. election against then-President Donald Trump and in favor of Joe Biden, who won.

Fox has denied the allegations, saying its coverage of newsworthy allegations against Smartmatic was fair and protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The network settled a similar lawsuit by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million in April 2023.

(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis)

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