A $100,000 civil penalty levied Wednesday against Chiquita Brands International Inc. is part of U.S. officials' effort to eliminate illegal payments to foreign officials, regulators said Wednesday.

        The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fined Cincinnati-based Chiquita for violating the record-keeping provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The law prohibits bribing of foreign government officials.

        The case against Chiquita, the world's largest banana producer, is the fourth this year lodged by the SEC targeting improper payments to foreign officials. That is the most since the law was enacted in the 1970s.

        Chiquita neither admitted nor denied the allegations in the SEC order, entered Wednesday in a federal court in Washington, D.C.

        The case involves payments made to customs officials in Colombia in 1995 and 1996 without the knowledge of Chiquita superiors in the United States.

        The SEC alleged that an official at Banadex, Chiquita's Colombian subsidiary, made two payments totaling about $30,000 to renew the company's customs license at the port facility in Turbo. The company had used the facility since 1993 as a place where goods could be stored pending inspection by customs officials.

        The license would allow Banadex to continue to store goods there.

        According to the settlement, Banadex officials discovered in September 1995 that renewal of the company's customs license was in jeopardy because of two previous citations. Replacing the facility, they estimated, would cost more than $1 million.

        Banadex's chief administrative officer then authorized the $30,000 payment out of a discretionary account, the complaint says.

        The first installment was incorrectly recorded in Banadex's financial statements as a “maritime donation.” A second installment was related to another maritime agreement.

        “The commission concludes that Banadex employees made inaccurate entries in the documents recording the transaction and Banadex's general ledger to conceal the payment to customs officials,” the order says.

        Chiquita general counsel Robert Olson said the company discovered the violation in a 1997 internal audit. The company fired the executives responsible.

        Chiquita did not report the violation to the SEC. When asked where the SEC got the information, Mr. Olson said, “I can't speculate on that.”

        To critics of Chiquita's Central American operations, the fine was too small. However, it confirmed the company's questionable behavior there.

        “Those of us who have long maintained that Chiquita is a company that gives capitalism a bad name are in a small way vindicated here,” said Larry Birns, a longtime Chiquita critic and director of the Council for Hemispheric Affairs in Washington.

Others fined by SEC

        It is the fourth SEC case this year dealing with improper payments to foreign officials, said Greg Bruch, assistant director of the SEC's enforcement division.

        For example, IBM agreed earlier this year to a $300,000 penalty for payments made to bank officials in Argentina.

        In July, American Bank Note Holographics Inc. officials agreed to a $75,000 fine for violating the anti-bribery provisions of federal securities laws.

        “It's been something subject to considerable effort here at the SEC over the last four or five years,” Mr. Bruch said.

        Shares in Chiquita closed down 5 cents to 70 cents in Wednesday trading. That was a new low.

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