Publication: Business Day Issued: Date: 2009-10-01 Reporter: Michael Peel Reporter: Jeremy Lemer

BAE faces threat of bribe charges

 

Publication 

Business Day
Date 2009-10-01
Reporter Michael Peel, Jeremy Lemer
Web Link www.bday.co.za



Corruption investigators plan to press criminal charges over BAE Systems’ arms deals if last-ditch efforts to force the company to accept an agreed guilty plea fail, the Financial Times has learnt.

Efforts by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office to persuade the British group to accept a conviction and large fine could lead to an announcement either way by as early as Thursday, insiders said.

A plea deal or contested prosecution would bring to a head one of the UK’s most politically charged cases and threaten BAE with big financial penalties and the prospect of being barred from bidding for lucrative international public works contracts.

Charges by the SFO were likely to be announced soon if the high-risk strategy of trying to force the company into a US-style plea bargain did not work, insiders said.

Investigators were expected to announce charges shortly if their strategy of trying to force the company into a US-style plea bargain failed. They have been working to a self-imposed deadline for a deal of midnight on Wednesday but could extend their efforts if they believed BAE was likely to settle.

If the SFO brought charges, Lady Scotland, the attorney-general –the UK government’s senior law officer – would have to give her consent to prosecution in a case that has been hugely controversial since Tony Blair, former prime minister, intervened in 2006 after pressure from Saudi Arabia to stop a probe into the £43bn Al-Yamamah deal under which Riyadh bought aircraft and other defence equipment from Britain.

BAE has repeatedly denied allegations that it paid hundreds of millions of pounds of bribes to win business in Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, South Africa, Romania and other countries.

The SFO wants a deal in which the company would plead guilty to limited corruption charges in exchange for more lenient treatment, said insiders.

A similar agreement between prosecutors and construction group Mabey & Johnson, the first of its kind in Britain, resulted last week in the company paying out about £6.5m in fines, compensation, costs and reparations.

A guilty plea could have severe consequences for BAE reputationally and commercially, with the possibility that it could be blacklisted from publicly funded projects in the US, European Union and elsewhere.

The company is also under investigation by the US Department of Justice and other national authorities. But there were no immediate signs that the SFO was co-ordinating its decision on prosecution with similar announcements elsewhere.

The stakes are high, too, for the SFO, which is under pressure to improve its record on tackling corporate corruption and deliver results from the BAE probe after investigating the company for more than five years.

BAE has previously denied bribery and said it is co-operating with the authorities as part of a policy of “allowing the ongoing investigations to run their course”. It declined to comment further.

The SFO said: “The investigation continues and we are endeavouring to bring it to a swift resolution.”

The SFO’s probe has also examined possible corruption cases against individual BAE managers and agents, although these would not be covered in either the proposed plea deal or a contested prosecution against the company.

With acknowledgements to Michael Peel, Jeremy Lemer and Business Day.


Procrastina continua.

Get it done.

We want to see these arrogant pommy slime merchants disbarred and imprisoned - now.

A fine, however large, is not good enough.

This company has made hundreds of billions of pounds by winning contracts using unlawful payments to foreign agents. These same agents pay politicians and decision-makers in the home countries at all levels. Some of the money filters back to company managers.

Meanwhile sales and marketing personnel and company directors get incentives for successful sales - so there is a direct benefit.

Higher level managers and directors get share incentive schemes where the increase in company share value has a direct benefit to them personnally.

All shareholders benefit directly from increases in company share value, but most of them do not care or know how this is achieved.

But this is no excuse - they must appoint directors, internal auditors and external accountants who do care and act accordingly to both their duty and their conscience..

Corruption is the scourge of both the developed world, but mainly the developing world. It inhibits proper advancement, progress and opportunity, especially for the disadvantaged.

The knock-on effects of corruption are orders of magnitude greater than most other crimes.

There should be the death penalty for systemic corruption *1 - natural persons should be hanged by the neck until dead or guillotined or shot at dawn by firing squad or injected with a lethal substance or have their head stomped upon by a trained elephant, while juristic persons should be deregistered and all their assets forfeited to the state on behalf of the people (all after due process).


A final point at this stage, one that has never ever been considered properly or at all :
why did Thomson-CSF feel that it needed to bribe Jacob Zuma (which it did) in order to get protection for itself in the face of pending corruption investigations in the Arms Deal?
 
This, dear countrypersons, is :
The Big Question.
 
*1      Racketeering is a form of systemic corruption.

That the conduct of some lead to charges against Jacob Zuma and Thomson-CSF being abandoned by the National Prosecuting Authority is another form of systemic corruption.

Off with their heads.