Some Ghanaian public officials have been implicated in an Airbus corruption scandal, but the incident occurred between 2009 and 2015.
According to British court documents, Ghana is one of five countries the European aviation giant, Airbus, paid or attempted to pay millions of dollars in bribes.
Those bribes were intended to secure contracts. These actions are part of several that led to a British court fining the company £3 billion.
Officials of Airbus, according to court documents and hearings admitted to five counts of failing to prevent bribery, using a network of secret agents to pay large-scale backhanders to officials in foreign countries to land high-value contracts.
Ghana focus
According to documents between 2009 and 2015 an Airbus defence company contacted a close relative of a high-ranking elected Ghanaian Government official as an agent in relation to the proposed sale of three military transport aircraft to the Government of Ghana.
“A number of Airbus employees knew that the intermediary was a close relative of Government Official 1, who was a key decision-maker in respect of the proposed sales.
A number of Airbus employees made or promised success-based commission payments of approximately €5 million to Intermediary 5,” the judgment states and continues: “False documentation was created by or with the agreement of Airbus employees in order to support and disguise these payments.
The payments were intended to induce or reward “improper favour” by Government Official 1 towards Airbus. Payments were eventually stopped due to the arrangement failing the due diligence processes required by the Liquidation Committee.”
The document also showed that “Airbus, through one of its Spanish defence subsidiaries, conducted two campaigns to sell its C-295 military transport aircraft to the Government of Ghana: the first campaign ran from 2009 to 2011, the second from 2013 to 2015. Intermediary 5, a UK national with no prior expertise in the aerospace industry, acted as the BP for Airbus in both. Company D was the corporate vehicle through which Intermediary 5 and his associates provided services to Airbus.”
His associates were Intermediaries 6 and 7, also UK nationals and there is no evidence they had any aerospace experience either. In August 2011, the purchase agreement for the sale of the two C-295 aircraft was signed by the Spanish defence subsidiary and the Government of Ghana, and it contained a declaration of compliance with the 1997 OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, as well as a declaration that no more than €3,001,718.15 would be paid to BPs in connection with the contract (broadly, a 5 per cent commission,” the document further showed.
The also revealed that “After Company D made a formal BP application to Airbus in May 2011, Airbus commissioned an external due diligence report. In September 2011 this report identified Intermediary 5 as a shareholder of Company D. The report raised the possibility that he was a close relative of Government Official 1 and concerns that there was a risk of non-compliance with the OECD Convention.”
Extensive scheme
The scheme was run by a unit at Airbus’ French headquarters, which its one-time chief executive, Tom Enders, reportedly called “bullshit castle”.
Airbus, reportedly landed contracts in at least 20 countries, according to prosecutors from a British court.
The plane-maker, a major defense and space supplier, agreed to pay the record $4 billion fine after reaching settlements with investigators in Britain, France and the United States.
The deal brought an end to a probe that began four years ago.
French and British authorities have been investigating Airbus for alleged corruption over jet sales for more than a decade.
In the US the company was being investigated over suspected violations of US export controls.
“It was a pervasive and pernicious bribery scheme in various divisions of Airbus SE that went on for a number of years,” US District Judge Thomas Hogan said.
London’s High Court approved the settlement struck with the UK’s Serious Fraud Office.
France’s financial prosecutor said Airbus also agreed to three years “light compliance monitoring” by the country’s corruption watchdog.
“In reaching this agreement today, we are helping Airbus to turn the page definitively” on corrupt past practices, French prosecutor Jean-Francois Bohnert said.
Source: Africafeeds.com
