US seeks to end 2020 Airbus criminal case over bribery, export controls

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. prosecutors on Friday asked a judge to dismiss a 2020 criminal case against European planemaker Airbus after a probationary period for the company expired.

A 2020 settlement known as a deferred prosecution agreement resolved an investigation into charges Airbus violated anti-bribery laws and export controls. The planemaker, a major supplier for the defense and space industries, paid about $4 billion worldwide including about $582 million in U.S. penalties.

The deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, effectively a corporate plea bargain, meant Airbus avoided criminal prosecution that would have risked it being barred from public contracts in the United States and the European Union as long as it abided by the agreement for three years.

Airbus agreed to cooperate with the department in any active investigations and prosecutions relating to the conduct and to enhance its compliance program.

“Airbus is determined not only to avoid the mistakes of the past, but to conduct its business with integrity and retain its position as a reliable and trustworthy partner,” the company said in a statement on Friday.

The Justice Department said in 2020 Airbus had schemed to offer and pay bribes to foreign officials, including Chinese officials, to obtain or retain business, including aircraft asles contracts.

The three-year probation period under the terms of the deferred prosecution agreements with France, the United Kingdom and United States ended in January, Airbus said.

France and the UK discontinued the prosecution earlier this year.

The Airbus statement included a reference to the final monitorship report of the Agence Française Anticorruption (AFA) that Airbus “has an anti-corruption program that is well designed and effective, deployed across the entire group, and underpinned by a particularly robust compliance culture, driven by senior management and the compliance function itself.”