By Nicole Hong 

Schlumberger Ltd., the world's largest oil-field services company, has agreed to pay $232.7 million for violating U.S. sanctions in Iran and Sudan, part of the government's extended crackdown on companies doing business with countries the U.S. has declared off limits.

As part of a plea agreement with the Justice Department, Schlumberger will pay a $155.1 million criminal fine--the biggest criminal fine ever imposed for a U.S. sanctions violation--and forfeit $77.6 million in illegally obtained profits.

Schlumberger Oilfield Holdings Ltd., a Schlumberger subsidiary, will plead guilty to conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, which allows the government to block transactions with countries under sanctions.

The agreement, which still needs court approval, caps a six-year investigation by the Justice Department and the Commerce Department. Details of the deal between government lawyers and Schlumberger were finalized on Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the situation.

A spokesman for Schlumberger said the company has "made appropriate enhancements to address the issues discovered through the investigation" and noted that it ceased operations in Iran and Sudan. Schlumberger is "satisfied that this matter is finally resolved," the spokesman said.

The penalty comes at a tough time for Schlumberger. Its share price has dropped nearly 20% in the past six months as a global oil glut has pushed crude prices to multiyear lows and reduced demand for Schlumberger's services, which include drilling and fracking oil and gas wells. In January, Schlumberger announced 9,000 job cuts after the firm's profit fell 82% in the last three months of 2014 from the year-earlier period.

Schlumberger has one of its headquarters in Houston and does business in more than 85 countries.

U.S. officials say a Schlumberger unit in Texas illegally facilitated the export of drilling equipment to Iran and Sudan from 2004 to 2010 by using special shipping methods to sidestep U.S. sanctions. Schlumberger's personnel in Iran and Sudan were instructed to disguise their payments in the company's computer system, according to court documents filed in federal court in the District of Columbia on Wednesday.

Schlumberger's failure to properly supervise these employees led to "willful conduct in violation of U.S. sanctions," the Justice Department said.

Multinational companies and banks have become an increasingly frequent target for U.S. authorities, who have ramped up financial penalties for sanctions violations. Two weeks ago, Commerzbank AG agreed to pay a total of $1.45 billion in penalties to New York and federal authorities to settle allegations it moved dollars through the U.S. on behalf of clients in countries such as Iran and Sudan. In recent years, other banks that have paid sanctions-related fines include HSBC Holdings PLC, Barclays PLC and Standard Chartered PLC.

The criminal fine against Schlumberger is the biggest so far under the IEEPA, according to the Justice Department. Other companies have paid much costlier settlements, but their size reflected large forfeitures of illegal profits or transactions. BNP Paribas SA forfeited a record $8.8 billion last June. The French bank's criminal fine, however, was $140 million.

Although U.S. sanctions against Iran and Sudan have been in place for two decades, Schlumberger could legally operate in the two countries under certain circumstances because the company is registered in the Caribbean, not in the U.S. Schlumberger was allowed to export equipment to sanctioned countries if the goods weren't manufactured in the U.S. and didn't involve U.S.-based employees or employees who were U.S. citizens, according to the Justice Department.

But federal investigators found that some of Schlumberger's shipments to Iran and Sudan did involve U.S.-based employees in the company's drilling-and-measurements unit in Sugar Land, Texas. Employees for Schlumberger's Iran and Sudan operations would also contact the company's U.S.-based employees for tech support, the Justice Department said.

Through complex shipping arrangements, Schlumberger's employees in the U.S. were involved in making sure Iran and Sudan had the equipment they needed and "actively facilitated" business operations in both countries, according to court documents. To hide the criminal activity, Schlumberger employees used code words like "Northern Gulf" for Iran and "Southern Egypt" for Sudan in internal communications, the court documents said.

The penalty is a victory for the federal investigators who spent years pursuing Schlumberger for sanctions violations. The investigation began in 2009 and led officials to review over one million documents, many of which were challenging to obtain because they were located overseas, according to people familiar with the matter. Actual negotiations between the government and Schlumberger took about a year, the people said.

During the investigation, officials uncovered messages from Schlumberger employees in Iran and Sudan asking how to enter expenditure requests into the company system. They were instructed not to type in country codes for Iran and Sudan, but to instead use "BGM," the code for a warehouse in the United Arab Emirates. "US/European people cannot approve [Iran] orders," one of the messages read, according to court documents.

Officials say pursuing companies for sanctions violations is a top priority. The Justice Department has reorganized some of its divisions in recent months to increase the emphasis on sanctions enforcement, according to John Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security.

Energy companies may be particularly at risk because many sanctioned countries are large oil producers. Last year, a Belgian subsidiary of oil and gas equipment manufacturer Robbins & Myers Inc. paid a $1 million criminal fine for violating sanctions on Syria. In 2013, two subsidiaries of Weatherford International Ltd., a Swiss oil services company, each agreed to pay a $1 million criminal fine for sanctions violations.

"There's an incentive sometimes for energy companies to do business with regimes that are sanctioned, but we want to make it clear that creative circumvention of sanctions is still unlawful," Mr. Carlin said in an interview.

As part of the company's penalty, Schlumberger will enter a three-year probation period during which it must notify the government of any other potential sanctions violations. Schlumberger must also hire an independent consultant to review its sanctions policies.

Write to Nicole Hong at nicole.hong@wsj.com

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