The biggest UK manufacturing company is the arms manufacturer BAe. The company being investigated for paying bribes to politicians and officials in countries around the world
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/bae
- Austria: BAe may be prosecuted in Austria for paying bribes to win an order for BAE's Eurofighters in 2002 for €1.7bn (£1.5bn). http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/19/austria-bae-arms-sales
- Chile: bribes may have been paid to Pinochet, the military dictator, when BAE sold warships and other arms to Chile. In 1989, Pinochet arranged an artillery rocket deal with BAE's recently privatised Royal Ordnance division. The Rayo 160mm multiple rocket launcher system was to be developed jointly with Chile. The Chilean army was reported to have sunk $60m into it before abandoning the project in 2003. In 1998, BAE was handed another contract to refurbish Chile's old 105mm howitzers with new barrels. Pinochet was wined and dined in London by BAE as a valued customer, while others were trying to have him arrested as a mass murderer. Pinochet acquired a secret fortune of at least US$28m (£14m), much of it apparently in bribes from arms manufacturers. BAE paid out a documented £1m, partly down the anonymous offshore Red Diamond route facilitated by Lloyds Bank. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/07/bae26
- Czech republic: The Czechs agreed to lease Gripen fighter planes for £400m in 2004. This followed failed attempts during a hectic lobbying campaign to persuade them to spend £1bn on buying outright a much larger fleet of Gripens. Tony Blair flew to Prague to lobby on behalf of BAE, which was selling the planes in a joint venture with Swedish manufacturer Saab. Secret payments from BAE of more than £4m were identified according to documents obtained by Swedish TV. A Swedish source alleged the money was to be used to pay bribes. Three agents were promised payments and in some cases received them. These three had links to the Czech political establishment. All three denied any money was for bribes.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/07/bae23
-Qatar: After the 1995 coup, Qatar was persuaded by UK Conservative defence minister Michael Portillo to sign up with BAE in a £500m arms deal called Project Nile. This ousted France, which had sold planes and tanks to the emir's father. The deal was envisaged to include ships, armoured vehicles and aircraft. Forty Alvis armoured cars were delivered in 1998. In 2002, Portillo was given a post as a BAE non-executive director. In return for the arms deal. BAE made a secret "commission" payment of £7m in 1998 to Sheikh Hamad, the Qatari foreign minister, The cash was deposited in an offshore account operated by Grindlays Bank in Jersey.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/07/bae25
- Romania: Two surplus British frigates, HMS London and HMS Coventry, were transferred to Romania in 2003 in a government-to-government deal organised by the UK Ministry of Defence. The ships had cost the British taxpayer about £250m to build only 14 years earlier. But the MoD handed them over to BAE for scrap value of £100,000 each. BAE did a deal under which it would receive £116m from Romania to refurbish the ships, plus a lucrative further contract to maintain them. A Romanian admiral later complained that he could have bought comparable Dutch warships for less than half the price, and that the British frigates were costly to maintain. Romania had to borrow the money from Deutsche Bank, in a loan guaranteed by Britain's export credit agency, ECGD. An agent with a dubious background, Barry George, was secretly paid £7m by BAE to fix the deal. Most of the money was sent to an anonymous Guernsey trust called Powerscourt.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/07/bae10
- Saudi Arabia: Three huge BAE deals with the Saudi royal family kept Britain's sole warplane manufacturer in profitable existence in the 1960s and 70s. All were corrupt, according to the files. In 1985 the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, negotiated with Bandar to clinch the so-called al-Yamamah deal for BAE in 1985: over 20 years, the warplane programme has brought £43bn in revenue for BAE. Police later calculated that more than £6bn may have been distributed in corrupt commissions, via an array of agents and middlemen.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jul/05/bae
- South Africa: The new South Africa committed to spend £3bn (now nearer £4bn with currency falls) on big arms purchases. In 1999, deals were signed to buy 40 Italian Agusta helicopters; frigates and submarines from Germany; and from Britain, 52 Hawk trainer aircraft and Anglo-Swedish Gripen fighters. The British deal, strenuously promoted by the British prime minister Tony Blair and backed by the UK export credit agency, ECGD, was worth an impressive £1.6bn. It eventually emerged that BAE's Hawks were twice the price of an Italian rival but the deal had been forced through regardless of cost by the South African defence minister Joe Modise. BAE is paying out at least £112m to a variety of secret offshore accounts over the 11-year delivery period of the contract.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/07/bae11
- USA: The department of justice is investigating BAe.