26.9 C
Karachi
Friday, March 29, 2024
- Advertisement -
 

Airbus to pay $4 billion to settle corruption probe

TOP NEWS

Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is an international news organisation owned by Thomson Reuters

PARIS: European planemaker Airbus will pay 3.6 billion euros (£3.02 billion) to settle corruption probes by U.S., British and French authorities into contract dealings, lifting a legal cloud that has hung over the world’s largest aircraft maker for years.

Announcing the agreement – effectively a corporate plea bargain – France’s financial prosecutor said the company had also agreed to three years “light compliance monitoring” by the country’s anti-corruption agency.

The simultaneous settlements in Britain, France and the United States mean the European planemaker has avoided criminal prosecution, though it was not immediately clear whether any individuals could still face charges.

“In reaching this agreement today, we are helping Airbus to turn the page definitively” on corrupt past practices, French prosecutor Jean-Francois Bohnert said, adding that the group could now “now look to its economic future with serenity”.

As part of the deal, Airbus has reached an agreement to settle corruption charges with France for 2.08 billion euros, the French financial prosecutor, Parquet National Financier (PNF), said.

The planemaker would also pay a 525.65 million euros fine to U.S. Department of Justice and 983.97 million euros to Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, PNF said.

Announcements from British and U.S. authorities were expected later on Friday.

The deal, believed by anti-corruption experts to be the largest ever in a bribery case, ends an almost four-year crisis that led to a sweeping management overhaul and delayed plans to redeploy the plane giant’s cash surplus.

While the size of the penalty is large, criminal charges would have risked the company being barred from public contracts in the United States and European Union – a massive setback for one of Europe’s top defence and space firms.

The European planemaker has been investigated by French and British authorities for suspected corruption over jet sales dating back more than a decade. It has also faced U.S. investigations over suspected violations of export controls.

At the centre of the case was a decades-old system of third-party sales agents run from a now-disbanded headquarters unit which at its height involved some 250 people in parts of the world and several hundreds of millions of euros of payments a year, sources familiar with the matter have said.

- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -
 

POLL

Will the PML-N led govt be able to steer Pakistan out of economic crisis?

- Advertisement -
 

MORE STORIES