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Fraud investigation stopped by Saudi's
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Its nice to know that a serious fraud office investigation can be stopped by a foreign government isnt it.
In the interests of national security apparently, more like the BAE contract which they threatened to cut.
In the interests of national security apparently, more like the BAE contract which they threatened to cut.
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Though good to see our 'allies' France were already sniffing around Saudi Arabia like a dog on heat.
Rather than getting angry about this, people should be getting angry about Export Credit Guarantee, whereby if some tinpot African dictator doesn't pay for his guns and planes we get to pay for instead.
I'd agree with that, the only way to ever get contracts with the Saudi's is to bribe them.
Didnt we effectively give loads of weapons to Saddam free through that system?
What a load of bollocks.
So much for ethical foreign policy. So much for principles.
One day it might even be the case that British soldiers are killed with British-made warplanes owned by a corrupt theocratic regime. An irony that will not be lost on them.
But no matter. Money talks, as always.
Basically, yeah.
And we'll end up giving these weapons to people like Adi Amin for nothing, too, if we write off all this African debt- most of it is though ECGD.
A loss of a £6bn order would threaten any company, Aladdin, and as Saudi Arabia are not a threat to the UK I don't see the issue.
I find it strange how some incentives are fine and others are not. Bribery talks in bug business, and if it brings jobs to the UK then I'm all for it.
BAE was doing nicely before this contract was agreed. The deal came as an unexpected bonus. And no jobs would have been lost if the deal had been called off later. Though aparently all companies have to do is to utter the magical words "thousands of jobs will be safeguarded by this deal" for people to accept it without questions or moral objections.
Regarding bribes to win deals, I thought capitalists took great pride in their system and saw fair play and competition between companies as a fundamental part of it. Dodgy deals, illegal transactions and bribes don't look like something to be proud of to me.
To cap it all this is not just any commercial venture but a weapons deals. Arms dealing is a rather unpleasant business at the best of times, and the last thing we need is to make it worse by selling them to nasty regimes through dodgy deals.
But what's new anyway? Those British chaps who got accused of planting bombs by the Saudis and subjected to torture had the pleasure of being electrocuted with British-made batons. Nice to see the government continues to lower its trousers and bend over in front of unpleasant dictatorships for the sake of a quick buck.
Can you eat principles?
But as an aside selling British weapons to Saudi means we're less likely to be killed by them than if the French did. We after all know the weaknesses of our own weapons pretty well and can stop spares being sold to replace the wear and tear and battle damage. An advantage we don't have if it French weaponary...
Let's not pretend the life of BAE and the jobs of thousands of workers depended on this deal. It so clearly didn't.
BAE would say otherwise of course. At the end of the day that is what every company always claims in such cases, regardless of the circumstances.
In fact couldnt it be construed as racist, that we dont trust these forign countries, that arnt run by white people we need to investigate them as their not compitant to run their own affairs.
I bet if this was a so called bribe to an French official for a contract and Jaques Chiraq and the french parliment said they dont want an investigation, their would be no complaints about it being dropped.
Its not our business to go round fixing other countries, we tried that in Iraq and its not working, if they want to have their system that way we shouldnt be concerned.
It is actually a good thing in this case to turn a blind eye to some thing that is quite minute a worry to safegaurd thousand of jobs. I am sure anyone with any experience in business would agree as far as jobs and money matters are concerned.
Does that mean that we have to support them?
Misplaced patriotism?
If you beleive the key to the success of this country is economic success then government subsidisies are not the way to such success.
'Right-wing' people who supposedly support free markets seem to get particularly confused on this point......
From BAE's own website:
5 continents
90,000 people
Largest European defence company
Top 10 US defence company
Order book £51.2 billion
£14.8 billion annual sales
£1.2 billion annual R&D spend
100 new inventions a year
Yep, I can see how the very life of the company depends on the Saudi deal...
It's a bit of a misnomer to say that everyone would be sacked- they wouldn't- but I'd rather have the jobs in Britain than in France or the US. And without orders factories close- the Saudis are one of the most important UK arms purchasers, and it isn't a good idea for the only British industry left to go and piss them off.
There's no point being principled when nobody else plays by the rules.
A clear example of how naive you are when it comes to business. You went toa website of a company that has shareholders and stockholders and you expected them to point out all their weaknesses? lol, how very naive.
Do you believe it is possible for a company to lose an order and carry on without major repercussions? It's not that far fetched.
What we know for certain is that a company will warn of terrible consequences whenever an issue that might that threatens any of their profits arises. Doesn't mean it's true of course. Remember all the promises of bankruptcies and massive job losses given by business leaders if the minimum wage was introduced?
A stupid idealism in today's world, I know.
They do not need to lie about cutting jobs because it is in fact true if they lose a £20Billion contract.
And there weren't any plans to sack anyone before this deal came to be. The sale was an unexpected bonus, not a life saver.
That's a very naive attitude to have. And also utterly wrong.
Without a full order book you don't need a full complement of staff. There were no "plans" for redundancies because the order book was full- if suddenly it was not full, redundancies and reduced working hours would quickly follow. Companies plan at least five years ahead with their order books.
The Government has managed to destroy every other heavy industry in the UK (the last shipyard on Tyneside folded this week), lets at least have some industry jobs left.
Principles are great, but they don't keep people in work. There is a time and a place for principles, and whingeing about a slush fund that everyone uses is not the time or the place.
If you want to complain about corruption, leave BAE alone and look at our darling Blair and his New Labour lackeys.
over the long term, the rule of law works things out to be fine financially in regards to fraud, as it makes for more secure transactions, rather than allow a banana republic way of doing thing, which is what would seperate our country from those many african countries where bribes outdo deal quality.....
then again yes minister shows itself to be true again
No they weren't. Simply because BAE is already very busy building Eurofighters for Britain, Spain, Germany, Italy and Austria. Not to mention Hawks that they export to many countries and upgrading programs for the RAF's Nimrods.
Oh I'm perfectly happy to accuse Labour of corruption- though I don't think companies should be left alone. BAE's track record is not exactly encouraging; they have even paid money into Augusto Pinochet's bank account.
The bottom line is that the laws of the country have been bent for financial reasons. That is a dangerous and worrying precedent.
Here's a good article about it by someone who actually believes the economic damage would have been significant if the Saudis had pulled out- but who still believes the rule of law should be put before profits:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1973296,00.html
There are several questions to ask:
1. Would this criminal investigation prevent further bungs? No.
2. Would this criminal investigation prevent the Saudis getting guns or planes? No.
3. Would this criminal investigation irrevocably damage our diplomatic and economic relationship with the Saudis? Yes.
4. Would that inevitably lead to job losses in a part of the country that already suffers from high unemployment (BAE's biggest factories are in East Lancashire)? Yes.
On balance, I think that the AG has reached the right decision. There would be no benefit to pissing off the Saudis in such a pointless and cack-handed way- either morally or financially- and so I'd rather see British people employed building Saudi weaponry than French people or American people or Polish people.
There are battles to fight and there are battles not to fight. This isn't one worth fighting. Morals don't feed the families of East Lancashire- bear in mind it isn't just the employees of BAE systems who would suffer, its the employees of all the contractors who make the bits for this order too.
Why bother having laws?
Point 3: couldn't care less
Point 4: debatable at best. And I'm sorry, but at the end of the day the rule of law should be above profits.
The crime is victimless, and the benefits of the criminal prosecution would by far be negated by the resultant job losses and damage to the UK economy.
When all said and done, its not as if BAE Systems were raping children in order to get the contract, is it? What's a bit of a bung between friends?