This video is called BAE Systems Confront Massive New Corruption and Multi-Million Dollar Fraud Allegations.
By Paddy McGuffin in Britain:
BAE accounts probe ‘must stay open’
Friday 09 August 2013
Britain’s audit watchdog was slammed by arms trade and transparency campaigners today for scrapping a probe into BAE Systems‘s accounts.
Campaign Against Arms Trade (Caat) and The Corner House are to challenge the Financial Reporting Council‘s (FRC) decision to close an investigation into the conduct of auditors KPMG between 1997 and 2007.
Begun by the FRC’s predecessor body in 2010, the probe was to focus on commissions paid by BAE to subsidiaries, agents and any connected companies.
In the spotlight was also any advice, consultancy or tax work provided by KPMG, as well as offshore BAE subsidiaries Diamond Trading, Poseidon Trading Investments and Novelmight.
But the FRC said that it would have to look at audits from before ’97 and this would not be in the public interest.
Caat and Corner House said that was rubbish, with numerous examples of such dodgy payments in the 10-year period.
They cited the deal to supply military air traffic control systems to Tanzania, which was the subject of a 2010 “plea bargain” with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) over corruption charges.
And they pointed out that the trio of offshore firms, which were used to channel secret payments, were all set up between ’97 and ’07.
“The public interest in the FRC pursuing these issues is great,” the two groups said in a letter to the agency sent by their solicitors Leigh Day.
“A failure to detect potential corrupt payments is a manifest audit failure and poses enormous risks to the public interest and the proper functioning of commerce.”
Caat spokeswoman Kaye Stearman said KPMG appeared to have signed off BAE‘s accounts without investigating the detailed allegations of illegal payments.
“BAE Systems‘s corrupt and illegal activities are already well documented in the media and elsewhere,” she said.
The FRC’s probe was “the only way forward” after “Prime Minister Tony Blair forced the SFO to drop its investigation into the Saudi arms deals in 2006 and BAE secured plea bargains with the US and UK authorities in 2010,” she said.
Related articles
- SFO loses BAE investigation papers (bbc.co.uk)
- UK fraud agency says lost data from BAE deal probe – Reuters UK (uk.reuters.com)
- Bahrain dictatorship’s British BAE warplanes (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
- SFO admits data loss blunder linked to BAE Systems case (telegraph.co.uk)
- Russell Lynch: For £6bn a year, why does our financial regulator not have much sharper teeth? (independent.co.uk)
- Documents linked to SFO probe into BAE Systems (itv.com)
Pingback: British parliamentary Saudi Arabia, Bahrain inquiry hindered by arms trade | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: British Christians against arms fair | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Bahrain dictatorship’s British government support | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: British government welcomes dictatorships at London arms fair | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Hillary Clinton not supporting Saudi women | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: British Typhoon warplanes to Bahraini dictatorship | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: British government helps corrupt BAE selling weapons to dictators | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: British governmental collusion with Saudi, Bahraini dictatorships | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Nelson Mandela, Britain, the USA and Bahrain | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: British charities entangled with weapons, tobacco corporations | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: British charity stops investing in weapons, tobacco corporations | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Buying German, French weapons bankrupts Greece | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Arms dealers infect British health service | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: NATO expansion, anti-Semitism, Ukraine and Russia | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: German militarism coming back | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: War profiteers BAE meeting invaded by pro-peace people | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: British help for oppression in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: ‘New bloodbath in Iraq proves failure of NATO warmongers’ | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: ‘Humanitarian’ British weapons sales to dictators, war zones | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Wars killing people, 1914-2014 | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: War is not peace, lesson of World War I | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: NATO conference and anti-militarism in Wales | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Wars are madness, Pope Francis says | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: BAE arms corruption scandal continuing | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: BAE arms corruption scandal continues | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Wars, death for millions, profits for millionaires | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Merchants of death’s luxury dinner in Tower of London | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: British secret police spying on journalists | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: British government selling weapons to Bahrain, other dictatorships | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen with British weapons | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Big Banking, Big Weapons corrupt British government bureaucrats | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Merchants of death BAE ‘pinkwashing’ | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Another German army officer arrested in neonazi teror scandal | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Stop British-Saudi war crimes in Yemen | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Saudi Arabia billion dollar arms deal | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: BAE, corrupt merchants of death | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: British Airways deports LGBTQ refugees, pinkwashes | Dear Kitty. Some blog