Airbus bribery scandal triggers new probes worldwide

(Reuters, Paris, 3 February 2020) Fallout from the Airbus bribery scandal reverberated around the world on Monday as the head of one of its top buyers temporarily stood down and investigations were launched in countries aggrieved at being dragged into the increasingly political row. Prosecution documents agreed by Airbus detailed a global network of agents or middlemen in transactions across the group's business and run from a cell in Paris where the group had part of its headquarters, split between France and Germany. Outlines of the operation and its annual budget of 250 million to 300 million euros had been reported by Reuters. fter Britain's Special Fraud Office reported that Airbus had hired the wife of a Sri Lankan Airlines executive as its intermediary in connection with aircraft negotiations, Airbus misled UK export credit agency UKEF over her name and gender, while paying her company $2 million the SFO said. Payments to "agents" in Nigeria, Korea, Taiwan, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Ghana and Malasia are being investigated.