A nice little bombshell with BAE admitting it was using corrupt practices to lands arms deals with various governments. Funny how they refused guilt for over two decades and now they decided to come clean. It looks like they oversold some expensive defensive systems to quite small countries. In the details they only admitted to accounting fraud so they would not be blacklisted for future arms contracts
The arms giant BAE today agreed to pay out almost £300m in penalties as the company finally admitted guilt over its worldwide conduct in the face of long-running corruption investigations.
For 20 years, the firm had refused to accept any wrongdoing, despite mounting evidence of alleged bribes and kickbacks, much of it uncovered by the Guardian.
But BAE said it would plead guilty to charges of false accounting and making misleading statements in simultaneous settlement deals with the Serious Fraud Office in the UK, and the department of justice in Washington.
The admissions in the US covered BAE’s huge £43bn al-Yamamah fighter plane sales to Saudi Arabia, and smaller deals in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in central Europe.
Analysis: The world of Arms dealings is still a shadowy stigma about them with all the backroom dealings that the public never sees.