Chiquita Banana

In so doing, the banana producer avoided prosecution for the company's now-defunct payoff of Colombian terrorists protecting its most profitable banana-growing operation, according to terms of a plea agreement with the U.S. Justice Department.

If approved by U.S. courts, the $25 million fine would represent the largest U.S. criminal penalty ever imposed under federal global terrorism sanction regulations, said Justice spokesman Dean Boyd. The regulations prohibit transactions with people who commit, threaten to commit or support U.S.-designated terrorists and establish penalties for doing so.

Attorneys from the Justice Department's National Security Division and federal prosecutors for the District of Columbia filed a joint sentencing motion Tuesday asking the court to accept the plea agreement, which was reached March 19, Boyd said. A hearing on the matter is set for Monday.

In its motion, the government asked that Chiquita Brands International be fined and sentenced to probation, as well as being required to implement an effective ethics program in connection with the company's guilty plea, Boyd said.

Federal prosecutors accused the Cincinnati-based company of paying more than $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a right-wing paramilitary group, in two parts of Colombia where the company grew bananas.

The payments to the group, known as the AUC, went through the company's Colombian subsidiary, Banadex, from 1997 to 2004, according to court documents filed in the case.

Court papers also say Chiquita paid Colombia's two leftist guerrilla groups, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and ELN (National Liberation Army) from about 1989 to 1997. At the time, according to court documents, those groups controlled areas where the company grew bananas.

The AUC, FARC and ELN are all combatants in Colombia's decade-long civil war, and all have been designated as terrorist organizations by the United States.

In a...