manchester
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- Sep 3, 2010
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LONDON (AP) A British judge on Tuesday sentenced defense contractor BAE Systems PLC to pay a fine of 500,000 pounds ($775,000) for failing to keep proper accounts of payments made to an adviser in Tanzania.
The payments were made in connection with the sale of a military radar system in 1999. BAE agreed in February to plead guilty to a single offense in a deal with the Serious Fraud Office, which in turn waived its right to investigate any other conduct by BAE before this year.
Justice David Bean, in a ruling which sharply criticized both BAE Systems and the Serious Fraud Office, said "there was a high probability" that some of the payments were used to favor BAE in negotiations, and it was impossible to determine whether they were lawful.
BAE, the judge said, "did not want to know the details" of how their adviser, Shailesh Vithlani used the money.
"The victims of this way of obtaining business, if I have correctly analyzed it, are not the people of the U.K., but the people of Tanzania," Bean said.
The payments were made in connection with the sale of a military radar system in 1999. BAE agreed in February to plead guilty to a single offense in a deal with the Serious Fraud Office, which in turn waived its right to investigate any other conduct by BAE before this year.
Justice David Bean, in a ruling which sharply criticized both BAE Systems and the Serious Fraud Office, said "there was a high probability" that some of the payments were used to favor BAE in negotiations, and it was impossible to determine whether they were lawful.
BAE, the judge said, "did not want to know the details" of how their adviser, Shailesh Vithlani used the money.
"The victims of this way of obtaining business, if I have correctly analyzed it, are not the people of the U.K., but the people of Tanzania," Bean said.
