BAE Systems handed £280m criminal fines in UK and US.
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Sounds like a great piece of business that and it cost them the equivalent of a "dont do it again..please"

The real outcome will be in Private Eye soon no doubt - they've been following this for ages

Until actual directors go to gaol this will continue. The fine is insignificant in comparison to the turnover of the company.

I think they will be saying that it's a giant humiliation for the UK govt, which basically should have given them a huge fine years ago.
I'm pretty sure the level of the fine is around the amount that Private Eye said BAE would negotiate (the original offer was twice as much).

It's all ridiculous though. European companies have to use corruption to get these foreign arms deals because the US arms manufacturers somehow always have amazing knowledge of the deals they offer and mysteriously undercut them at final bids stage. Questions were asked in the German parliament about Echelon in relation to this when Raytheon won a Brazillian missiles deal a few years back. If the yanks are going to use espionage against us, then we have little option but to use equally shady methiods against them.

The yanks have been using their spy networks for the benefit of US corporations for years, to protect US jobs. Though maybe the best long term solution is to not export to other countries. It avoids exporting to ethical dubious countries and while it shrinks the domestic arms industry it does free up a lot more government money for more productive industries.

£250m, BAe must be laughing. A fine that small for bribes that got them a £40 billion contract with Saudi.

....and if it hadn't been the UK with Typhoon, it would have been the yanks with F22 or the French with Mirage....zzzzz

Somebody would have bribed the Saudis to get the contract, I must admit I much prefer that it's us compared to anyone else.

Its an occupational hazard.

One company I worked with, had a very strict "no bribery" policy under any circumstances. They also had a "third party" company that facilitated commerce and business. Thus the had "clean" hands. In some countries business can not be done without some low level bribery/corruption.

God knows what sort of money we'd waste if we ever looked into oil company ops. in Russia alone

If we ever took a long hard look at how many public servants have signed disastrous PFI and outsourcing contracts in the UK before leaving their jobs to take up high paid consultancy positions with the companies that gorge themselves on our taxes, we'd have to build 10 more prisons to hold the [LIFTED].

There are supposed to be rules about such behaviour. Shame they are not followed. The same contracts are signed by politicians and they should stop doing the same thing.

I thought wilfully misleading the US Military on overrun costs was how the American Military Complex worked... I guess only if you are an American company though?

I always thought it was Congress and the American people that was often on the sharp end of that behaviour

Aparté: I've been in a couple Mirages They're nice!