BAE Systems faces bribery charges

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

BAE Systems, the UK's biggest manufacturer, is facing bribery charges the BBC has learned.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) will announce later that it has reached no agreement with the firm, and will ask the Attorney General to prosecute BAE.

The case refers to allegations BAE paid millions of pounds to win contracts from several countries. It may face confiscation of between £500m and £1bn.

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A separate investigation into BAE by the SFO was dropped in 2007 after it was decided that national security was at risk.



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8284073.stm

[Joanne98]

1. UK fraud office aims to prosecute BAE Systems

Source: Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Serious Fraud Office wants to prosecute Europe's biggest defense contractor, BAE Systems, for corruption and bribery, and lawyers said big fines were possible, though securing a conviction would be difficult.

The SFO said on Thursday it would seek government consent to prosecute BAE after a long-running probe into arms deals in the Czech Republic, Romania, South Africa and Tanzania dating back to the 1990s.

"The SFO ... intends to seek the Attorney General's consent to prosecute BAE Systems for offences relating to overseas corruption," it said, though a spokesman would not say when it would be ready to submit documents to the Attorney General.

BAE, which has denied the allegations, said in a statement it would continue to attempt to resolve the matter


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/ousivMolt/idUSL151455820091001

[UpInArms]

2. background: Brothers in Arms: Bandar Bush Took a Billion in Bribes to Push UK Weapons Deal

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2007/060707Floyd.shtml

So says the Guardian, which has had a sneak peek at the evidence compiled by Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in its lengthy investigation of vast corruption in a decades-long arms deal between Saudi Arabia and the Anglo-American arms merchant, BAE, Tony Blair's favorite war profiteer. The SFO's probe was preemptorily quashed by Blair's ever quiescent attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, last December. Now the Guardian has learned that BAE paid a quarterly bribe to Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud-- long-time ambassador to the United States, and so intimate with America's ruling family that the president nicknamed him "Bandar Bush." BAE was plying Prince Bush with $30 million every quarter -- for ten years. Nice work if you can get it.

The background to this sordid business can be found in a piece I did last year: Last Bad Deal Gone Down: War Profits Trump the Rule of Law. A brief excerpt below sets the scene:

Slush funds, oil sheikhs, prostitutes, Swiss banks, kickbacks, blackmail, bagmen, arms deals, war plans, climbdowns, big lies and Dick Cheney – it's a scandal that has it all: corruption and cowardice at the highest levels, a festering canker at the very heart of world politics, where the War on Terror meets the slaughter in Iraq. Yet chances are you've never heard about it – even though it happened just a few days ago. The fog of war profiteering, it seems, is just as thick as the fog of war.

But here's how the deal went down. On Dec. 14, the UK Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith (Pete Goldsmith as was, before his longtime crony Tony Blair raised him to the peerage), peremptorily shut down a two-year investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into a massive corruption case involving Britain's biggest military contractor and members of the Saudi royal family. SFO bulldogs had just forced their way into the holy of holies of the great global backroom – Swiss bank accounts – when Pete pulled the plug. Continuing with the investigation, said His Lordship, "would not be in the national interest."

It certainly wasn't in the interest of BAE Systems, the British arms merchant which has become one of the top 10 U.S. military firms as well, through its voracious acquisitions during the profitable War on Terror – including some juicy hook-ups with the Carlyle Group, the former corporate crib of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and still current home of the family fixer, James Baker. BAE director Phillip Carroll is also quite at home in the White House inner circle: a former chairman of Shell Oil, he was tapped by George II to be the first "Senior Adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Oil" in those heady "Mission Accomplished" days of 2003. BAE has allegedly managed to "disappear" approximately $2 billion in shavings from one of the largest and longest-running arms deals in history – the UK-Saudi warplane program known as "al-Yamanah" (Arabic for "the dove"). Al-Yamanah has been flying for 18 years now, with periodic augmentations, pumping almost $80 billion into BAE's coffers, with negotiations for $12 billion in additional planes now nearing completion. SFO investigators had followed the missing money from the deal into a network of Swiss bank accounts and the usual Enronian web of offshore front companies.

Bandar Bush was instrumental in setting up the deal in the first place, the Guardian notes, wheeling and dealing with Maggie Thatcher from his Washington redoubt. The prince -- one of the leading figures in perhaps the most repressive and extremist Islamic state on earth -- has continued to be influential with the White House even after stepping down as ambassador in 2005. (He's now head of the repressive state's security organs.) He's also played a key role in L'il Bush's political career -- making a deal to cut oil prices before the 2004 vote and publicly endorsing his "brother" in the election. One cannot but speculate on how much of the dirty BAE money was used to grease the overt and covert ops of the Bush political machine. According to the Guardian, Bandar's BAE bribes were drawn from BAE's slush fund and deposited in Bandar's account in Washington's Riggs Bank -- the notorious money-laundering outfit used for decades by American and foreign elites to wash their filthy lucre. L'il Bush's uncle, Jonathan Bush, was a top executive at Riggs Bank when it was hit with a record $25 million fine in 2004 for skirting money-laundering laws, as David Sirota -- and then the Washington Post -- reported.

...more...

[Octafish]

3. How IS Bandar Bush these days?

His Airbus is done up in Cowboys colors, a sign he's enjoyin' retirement in the company of his bidness partners friends at BAe and in Texas.

Most importantly: Thanks all for the excellent articles and thread.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Iranian TV said a Saudi opposition group said he was under house arrest for an attempted coup

http://www.presstv.ir/textonly/detail.aspx?id=102313§ionid=351020205

If you think that sounds like 3rd hand rumour, you'd be correct. But who knows what's going on?

[UpInArms]

6. looks like Bandar can't do much with his US stuff these days

Saudi royal Prince Bandar Bin Sultan's assets frozen

February 10, 2008

PRINCE Bandar Bin Sultan, the former Saudi Arabian ambassador to America, has been hit by a court order in effect freezing some of his US assets, as part of a class-action lawsuit over bribery allegations at British defence giant BAE Systems.

A Michigan pension scheme – the City of Harper Woods Employees’ Retirement System – has been granted a restraining order, according to documents filed in the US district of Columbia and seen by The Sunday Times.

The order, granted last Tuesday, blocks Bandar from transferring out of the country any money he makes from the sale of property in America.

Bandar owns one of the world’s most expensive homes, Hala Ranch, in Pitkin County, Aspen, Colorado. The bulk of the estate was put up for sale for $135m (£69m) in July 2006 after Bandar reportedly decided he was spending too much time in Saudi Arabia to take advantage of the lavish property.

The 56,000 sq ft main residence is bigger than the White House and has 15 bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, an indoor swimming pool, steam and exercise rooms and includes a private children’s wing with four bedroom suites and a sitting room. The estate spans 95 acres, includes two 15,000 sq ft guest houses, tennis and racquetball courts and equestrian facilities. It even has a dedicated waste-water treatment plant, a car wash and petrol pumps.

The latest move comes after the pension scheme launched a class-action suit on behalf of rebel investors last September against the BAE board, as well as former directors and Bandar.

The case centres on allegations that bribes worth $2 billion were paid to Saudi officials, including Bandar, as part of BAE’s agreement to supply military aircraft and other equipment to Saudi Arabia.

The lawsuit accuses BAE directors of “intentional, reckless and negligent breaches of their fiduciary duty”.

...more...

:hi:

[ananda]

4. Serious fraud?

So what's the difference between s e r i o u s fraud
and just plain fraud? Lol

[Coventina]

7. I prefer "humorous fraud"

:D