Airbus and the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) told the French courts on Wednesday that they had reached an agreement to avoid possible criminal prosecution of the European aircraft manufacturer on suspicion of corruption in Libya and Kazakhstan, in exchange for a fine of 15, 9 million euros. This Judicial Agreement of Public Interest (CJIP) and the amount of the fine have yet to be validated by the Criminal Court of Paris.
This agreement between Airbus and the PNF is in addition to another CJIP concluded in January 2020 to end an investigation in France, the United States and Great Britain into acts of corruption of a foreign public official and private corruption committed between 2004 and 2016. in some fifteen countries, during the contracts for the sale of civil aircraft and satellites entered into by entities of the Airbus group.
a new deal
The investigation concluded with a record fine of 2.083 million euros in France and 1.5 billion euros in Great Britain and the United States. In court on Wednesday, the PNF said the 2020 “record amount of the fine” had “fully and completely satisfied the public interest” and said it had seen a “profound internal transformation of Airbus since” that date.
Airbus and the PNF had confirmed at the end of October that they were negotiating a new agreement on “facts that are an extension of those that gave rise to the CJIP concluded in January 2020, but that could not be dealt with simultaneously.” according to the NFP.
The Mediapart news site reported last May that the courts were particularly interested in the sale of twelve Airbuses to Libya in 2006, as part of the judicial investigation opened in 2013 into the alleged Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s winning presidential campaign. in 2007.
Source: BFM TV
