FINES AGREED OVER CORRUPT SALES
PLANE maker Airbus has struck a £2.5billion deal to settle allegations of bribery and corruption.
The industry giant confirmed it had reached agreement with the Serious Fraud Office, along with authorities in France and the US.
The claims relate to suspected corruption regarding the sale of airliners dating back a decade.
“For legal reasons, Airbus cannot make any comments on the details of its discussions with the investigating authorities,” it said, refusing to reveal the figures involved.
Britain is one of Airbus’s four home markets, alongside France, Germany and Spain. It employs 13,500 people here, and 134,000 worldwide.
Analysts at investment bank Jefferies welcomed the settlement, but revealed the reported cost was “towards the upper end of what we thought probable”.
Airbus had already fired more than 100 people due to ethics and compliance issues as a result of its own probe into the corruption allegations.
The investigations began after Airbus drew the attention of regulators to inaccurate declarations it had made to Britain’s export credit finance agency over payments to sales agents.
The SFO launched its probe in August 2016. At the centre of the case was a decades-old system of third-party agents, or intermediaries, run from a now disbanded headquarters unit.
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