BAE Sentenced to $775,000 Fine to End Bribery Probe
December 21, 2010, 7:29 AM EST
By Lindsay Fortado
(Updates with company comment in ninth paragraph.)
Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- BAE Systems Plc, Europes biggest defense company, was sentenced to pay a 500,000-pound ($775,000) fine after pleading guilty to not keeping proper payment records, ending a six-year bribery investigation.
Judge David Bean in London sentenced the company today after it pleaded guilty in a deal with the U.K. Serious Fraud Office. It had agreed in February to pay 30 million pounds as part of the plea deal. BAE will send the remainder of the money to Tanzania, where the illegal conduct took place.
The defense company has been under investigation in the U.K. since November 2004 for allegedly paying bribes to win deals in six countries including Tanzania and the Czech Republic. BAE agreed in February to pay almost $450 million in fines to resolve the case with the SFO and U.S. prosecutors.
Bean today called the plea agreement loosely and hastily drafted and said the fine he levied reflected that he couldnt sentence for an offense which the prosecution failed to charge, such as conspiracy to corrupt or false accounting.
BAE paid $400 million to the U.S. in February and pleaded guilty to making false statements in connection with regulatory filings. The company denies paying bribes.
The SFO postponed asking for court approval of its part of the deal as it sought to draft papers that avoid running afoul of the U.K. courts, which dont allow the SFO to agree to a penalty.
Appropriate Penalty
My job is to bring cases to court and it is entirely up to the judge to set the appropriate penalty, SFO director Richard Alderman said after the ruling. We thought it was appropriate to draw a line under the past.
He said he expected BAE to honor the portion of the agreement to pay the remainder of the 30 million pounds to Tanzania, a move the judge said places moral pressure on the court to keep the fine to a minimum. BAE will also pay the SFO 225,000 pounds for their legal fees.
BAE said in an e-mailed statement that the ruling drew a line under this historical matter. Lindsay Walls, a spokeswoman for the company, said BAE would pay 29.5 million pounds to Tanzania.
In the decade since the conduct referred to in this settlement occurred, the company has systematically enhanced its compliance policies and processes, BAE said in the statement.
BAE Shares
Shares of the London-based company rose 1.8 percent to 333.4 pence on the London Stock Exchange at 12:04 p.m. The shares have fallen 7.2 percent this year.
The settlement concentrates on Tanzania, where BAE made commission payments to a marketing adviser in connection with a radar system and failed to accurately account for such payments. The investigation surrounding the Tanzania case stretches back to a 1997 contract.
BAE admitted in the plea bargain that there was a good chance that part of the $12.4 million it paid to Shailesh Vithlani was used in the negotiation process for the $40 million radar system to favor BAE.
It seems naive in the extreme to think Vithlani was simply a well-paid lobbyist, Bean said in his judgment.
The defendants were concealing from the auditors and ultimately the public the fact that they were making payments to Mr. Vithlani, 97 percent of them via two offshore companies, with the intention that he should have free rein to make such payments to such people as he thought fit in order to secure the radar contract for the defendants, but that the defendants did not want to know the details, Bean said.
The SFO was forced to scrap an investigation into BAE in 2006 over bribes allegedly paid to win deals in Saudi Arabia, after then-prime minister Tony Blair said charges might harm relations between the countries
December 21, 2010, 7:29 AM EST
By Lindsay Fortado
(Updates with company comment in ninth paragraph.)
Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- BAE Systems Plc, Europes biggest defense company, was sentenced to pay a 500,000-pound ($775,000) fine after pleading guilty to not keeping proper payment records, ending a six-year bribery investigation.
Judge David Bean in London sentenced the company today after it pleaded guilty in a deal with the U.K. Serious Fraud Office. It had agreed in February to pay 30 million pounds as part of the plea deal. BAE will send the remainder of the money to Tanzania, where the illegal conduct took place.
The defense company has been under investigation in the U.K. since November 2004 for allegedly paying bribes to win deals in six countries including Tanzania and the Czech Republic. BAE agreed in February to pay almost $450 million in fines to resolve the case with the SFO and U.S. prosecutors.
Bean today called the plea agreement loosely and hastily drafted and said the fine he levied reflected that he couldnt sentence for an offense which the prosecution failed to charge, such as conspiracy to corrupt or false accounting.
BAE paid $400 million to the U.S. in February and pleaded guilty to making false statements in connection with regulatory filings. The company denies paying bribes.
The SFO postponed asking for court approval of its part of the deal as it sought to draft papers that avoid running afoul of the U.K. courts, which dont allow the SFO to agree to a penalty.
Appropriate Penalty
My job is to bring cases to court and it is entirely up to the judge to set the appropriate penalty, SFO director Richard Alderman said after the ruling. We thought it was appropriate to draw a line under the past.
He said he expected BAE to honor the portion of the agreement to pay the remainder of the 30 million pounds to Tanzania, a move the judge said places moral pressure on the court to keep the fine to a minimum. BAE will also pay the SFO 225,000 pounds for their legal fees.
BAE said in an e-mailed statement that the ruling drew a line under this historical matter. Lindsay Walls, a spokeswoman for the company, said BAE would pay 29.5 million pounds to Tanzania.
In the decade since the conduct referred to in this settlement occurred, the company has systematically enhanced its compliance policies and processes, BAE said in the statement.
BAE Shares
Shares of the London-based company rose 1.8 percent to 333.4 pence on the London Stock Exchange at 12:04 p.m. The shares have fallen 7.2 percent this year.
The settlement concentrates on Tanzania, where BAE made commission payments to a marketing adviser in connection with a radar system and failed to accurately account for such payments. The investigation surrounding the Tanzania case stretches back to a 1997 contract.
BAE admitted in the plea bargain that there was a good chance that part of the $12.4 million it paid to Shailesh Vithlani was used in the negotiation process for the $40 million radar system to favor BAE.
It seems naive in the extreme to think Vithlani was simply a well-paid lobbyist, Bean said in his judgment.
The defendants were concealing from the auditors and ultimately the public the fact that they were making payments to Mr. Vithlani, 97 percent of them via two offshore companies, with the intention that he should have free rein to make such payments to such people as he thought fit in order to secure the radar contract for the defendants, but that the defendants did not want to know the details, Bean said.
The SFO was forced to scrap an investigation into BAE in 2006 over bribes allegedly paid to win deals in Saudi Arabia, after then-prime minister Tony Blair said charges might harm relations between the countries