A British court has decided to accept a plea bargain agreed upon by the Serious Fraud Office and corrupt construction company Mabey & Johnson, making the bridge-builder the first U.K. company to be convicted of foreign bribery.

The ruling ends a case in which the SFO used new U.S.-style plea bargaining powers for the first time.

Mabey & Johnson pleaded guilty in July to charges that it systematically paid bribes around the world to win contracts. Now the courts have accepted that plea and sentenced the company.

The company admitted that it paid $1.6 million to foreign politicians and officials to get export orders valued at $95 million to $111 million through covert middlemen. It also broke United Nations sanctions by illegally paying approximately $576,000 to Saddam Hussein's government from 2001 to 2002.

The company was fined $5.5 million and ordered to pay a $1.7 million confiscation order to the United Nations Iraq fund and the Jamaican and Ghanaian governments and $555,389 in prosecution costs.

The SFO is still investigating some of the individuals involved in the case.

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