Airbus fined 104M over Taiwan missiles

AIRBUS said on Saturday it had been fined € 104 million for a dispute dating from 1992 over missile sales to Taiwan by the Matra group, which was later acquired by the aerospace giant.

Airbus, which this week agreed to sell China 184 A320 airplanes by 2020, said in a statement it had been ordered to pay the fine “for a complaint of breach of contract concerning the sale of missiles”.

Matra Defence SAS, which joined the Airbus group in 1998, said for its part it was “studying the fine and evaluating next steps”, the statement said.

An Airbus spokesman declined to provide details on the case when contacted by an AFP reporter.

In a separate case, the European group said that it was in discussions with prosecutors in Munich that could close a German probe into alleged corruption related to the sale of Eurofighter jets to Austria.

In February, Austria sued Airbus over a 2003 Eurofighter deal that was long alleged to have been highly shady, seeking up to € 1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) in damages.

Austria’s Defence Ministry said at the time that the lawsuit accused Airbus and the Eurofighter consortium of deliberately hoodwinking Vienna over the €2 billion order.

At the time Airbus chief Tom Enders was head of the defence division of European Aeronautic Defence Space Company, which became the Airbus Group in 2014.

“We will reveal the results when the investigation is closed,” the Airbus statement said.