Serious Fraud Office launches Airbus probe

The investigation itself can take years, and possibly provoke investigators in France, Germany, and other countries to do investigations of their own into the Airbus Group and their use of third-party agents.

An SFO spokesman said no further information would be made public before the outcome of the investigation.

It stated Sunday it’s cooperating with the investigation in the United Kingdom.

European planemaker Airbus said it was aware of the probe and the aviation firm was working with investigators.

Airbus said the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office had opened a criminal probe into the company related to irregularities concerning third-party consultants that the British government identified back in April.

The agency, UK Export Finance, had said it was referring the discrepancies to the SFO, which would decide whether to launch a criminal investigation.

Airbus was informed about the criminal investigation on Friday.

“This is as an effort of our enhanced anti-corruption [policy]”, he added.

Airbus revealed in April that it was speaking with British authorities over “inaccuracies” it had found in applications it had made for United Kingdom government credit guarantees. BAE Systems has been the subject of an SFO probe and Rolls-Royce is under investigation.

But with some US officials predicting EXIM could resume funding for Boeing exports around the turn of the year, Airbus could be disadvantaged in some emerging markets unless it achieves its target of reopening European credits by year-end. The plane maker said last month it’s intending to get the funding restored by the fourth quarter of this year.

The company had to write off a heavy load of just over one billion euros as a result of various delays and technical problems of the military transport aircraft A400M.

However these were compensated for by the sale of shares in Dassault Aviation and the creation of a rocket launcher joint venture with Safran that generated a net gain of almost 1.9 billion euros.