Comments on: BAE Gets a Slap on the Wrist

By: wrs10

wrs10 — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:52:40 +0000

Get real guys – BAE does not have that sort of money. It was merely recycling Saudi money. What is it to us what the Saudis do with their own money?

By: Danny_K

Danny_K — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:10:18 +0000

Prince Bandar is very very well connected and a personal friend of the Bushes. Note also the Saudi’s willingness to use terrorism as a bargaining tool. They will never end terrorism because it’s so useful y
to them.

By: Percepied

Percepied — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:06:33 +0000

“While the Brits shut down their investigation, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) laudably did not. The DOJ investigated all of the charges that the SFO had been looking into, including another incident in which BAE forked over $12 million to middlemen that conveniently helped land BAE a contract with the Tanzanian government to sell a complex air traffic control system.”

No, the Brits did not shut down the investigation. A part of it was closed, yes – that relating to the Saudi deal – but not the whole thing.

In addition to the settlement announced today with the DOJ (a settlement which included deals other than the Saudi one), a settlement was reached in the UK too for those other matters still under investigation. As the BBC reports “The firm is to admit two criminal charges and pay fines of £286m ($447m) to settle US and UK investigations.” The bulk of the fine will go to the US government.

What this shows is that some companies – and this applies as much to US and other European companies – are too large and too important in their sector to be debarred so an alternative settlement is reached.

By: teabag

teabag — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:03:37 +0000

“I’m no math genius, but £43 billion minus £300 million still equals a lot of billions. Great settlement for BAE. Not so much for everyone else. Hell, the only lesson that this settlement teaches is that apparently, corruption pays.”

At least they paid something back.

When are we going to get any investigation of the Halliburton/KBR/Bleckwater no bid contracts that funneled billions to these people for not a lot. When are we going to get an investigation of the Bush White-house energy policy where the industry met behind closed doors with the VP and the VP asked “what do you want”

There was far more corruption in the Bush White-house than in BAE