The Eurofighter Typhoon at the 2008 Farnborough Airshow. BAE has sold the jets to Saudi Arabia in a multi-billion pound deal
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Relief for workers as BAE inquiry settled
By Jack SommersFebruary 08, 2010
THE Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has given up its investigation into corruption at one Farnborough’s biggest employers.
BAE Systems, the arms company that employs 1,400 people at its corporate headquarters at the Farnborough Aerospace Centre, admitted a charge of failing to keep reasonably accurate accounting records of its business in Tanzania.
The company will pay a £30m fine and the SFO has agreed to suspend its investigation, which began in November 2004, into contracts in Tanzania and Europe.
As part of the same deal, the US Department of Justice has agreed to suspend its investigation into BAE’s business in Saudi Arabia. BAE agreed to pay a $400m (£260m) fine to US authorities in addition to the British settlement.
"Serious offences"
The SFO issued a statement that said: "The director has taken into account that the company has agreed to plead guilty to serious offences both in the UK and in the US and to pay substantial financial penalties.
"In all the circumstances, he has decided that it is no longer in the public interest to continue the investigation into the conduct of individuals."
BAE Systems welcomed the removal of the threat of corporate prosecution, which may have threatened thousands of UK jobs, including the 1,400 people who work in Farnborough and more than 500 employees at BAE Systems Insyte in Frimley.
As the company has only admitted false accounting, rather than any bribery offences, it will not face the prospect of losing lucrative international arms deals with the US.
For more on this story, see the News & Mail, out on Friday, February 12.
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