Airbus agrees to settle bribery and corruption investigations
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Airbus confirmed that it had agreed to settle bribery and corruption investigations with authorities in the US, the UK, and France.
The European aircraft maker said that the agreements remain subject to approval in the various jurisdictions, and that it could not make any comments on the details of the discussions.
The agreements comes after years-long probes in the three countries. The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) launched an investigation in 2016 after Airbus revealed it had discovered inconsistencies in disclosures made about external consultants.
The company allegedly failed to notify authorities about the use of the consultants in aircraft deals it was asking the UK government to cover with financing guarantees. Because major Airbus components are manufactured or assembled in the UK, France, and Germany, the company has access to wide-ranging finance support from all three governments.
The Financial Times says thatAirbus, the deal would mark the end of a corruption probe lasting nearly four years that has claimed the jobs of some senior executives, even though they were not implicated in any wrongdoing. The board took the view that the company would have a better chance of winning a settlement if an entirely new senior management team was put in place. This was helped by the fact that several executives were approaching retirement age. Tom Enders, chief executive, and Fabrice Brégier, chief operating officer, both stepped down last spring. The company has also overhauled its ethics and compliance procedures, established an independent review panel of outside experts, and significantly cut down the number of third-party agents used to secure deals.
