establishment<\/em> londonien et avec l’Arabie. Elle est d\u00e9sormais dans le domaine am\u00e9ricaniste o\u00f9 BAE n’a pas que des amis et n’occupe pas une position de force. Warner fait justement allusion \u00e0 l’influence des concurrents de BAE aux USA (Lockheed Martin, Boeing) qui ont jou\u00e9 un r\u00f4le dans la d\u00e9cision de la bureaucratie US d’ouvrir une enqu\u00eate. Et il fait justement remarquer qu’\u00e0 Washington, o\u00f9 dominent les groupes de pression et les bureaucraties, o\u00f9 l’influence du gouvernement central est faible, il sera tr\u00e8s difficile sinon impossible de stopper le processus d’enqu\u00eate. Le DoJ et le Congr\u00e8s ne sont pas le SFO.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00abWhen Britain’s Serious Fraud Office abandoned its investigation of alleged bribery in connection with the Al-Yamamah arms deal, it was generally thought to be good news for the contractor, BAE Systems. A dark cloud seemed to have been removed, leaving the company free to pursue its future without the whiff of corruption which has haunted it all these years. There was also to be a dividend from the Saudis in the form of the second phase of the Al-Yamamah contract, reportedly worth in excess of \u00a320bn to BAE.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbAs it turns out, the decision has neither removed the allegations of corruption nor yet delivered the second phase of the contract. Indeed, with the US Justice Department now wading into the mire, the company’s position is arguably worse than it was when the SFO investigation was still going on.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThe SFO probe was close to conclusion at the time it was abandoned, ostensibly for reasons of national security. Whatever the outcome might have been – be it a prosecution or a judgement of no case to answer – it could hardly have been worse than being immersed in the icy waters of the US Justice Department. There is no telling how long this process might go on or what the eventual penalties might be.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbBAE’s whole strategy is based around expansion in the US. Contracts and acquisitions are now likely to be put on hold as the US authorities attempt to get to the bottom of whether anti-corruption laws were broken. Never mind the cost in terms of lost business opportunities, any directly imposed penalties are also likely to be much harsher than those which would have been meted out in Britain.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbBAE Systems hoped to bury the past. Instead, there now appears to be no stopping it being exhumed. With so much to lose in the US, BAE has no option but to co-operate fully. What stance the UK and Saudi governments choose to adopt is anyone’s guess.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t()<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00bbThe SFO continues to investigate similar allegations made in connection with a number of other overseas defence deals in which BAE was the prime contractor. By threatening to cut off diplomatic ties, including the flow of anti-terrorist intelligence, the Saudis were able to blackmail the British authorities into dropping their investigations.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbIt seems doubtful that the US Justice Department will be similarly persuaded. National jurisdiction no longer seems to have much meaning in today’s reality of business without borders. Companies that manage to escape the long arm of the law in one country are likely to be held to account for their misdemeanours somewhere else.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbNot that anyone should think US motives are entirely altruistic here. The US Justice Department has been lobbied hard by powerful BAE rivals to take up where the SFO left off, most of them just as guilty in the past of paying commissions for contracts as BAE Systems. What a grubby, dog-eat-dog business the commercial world sometimes is.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tMis en ligne le 28 juin 2007 \u00e0 05H13<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dans The Independent, l’un des commentateurs de la rubrique \u00e9conomique du quotidien, Jeremy Warner, met dans sa chronique Outlook d’hier, le destin de BAE en perspective \u00e0 la suite de la d\u00e9cision US d’ouvrir une enqu\u00eate. (D\u00e9cision du d\u00e9partement de la justice, officielle depuis le 25 juin.) Sans s’attacher \u00e0 la pol\u00e9mique concernant le cas,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3259,3792,3858,6640,3922,3471,6219,3470,4364],"class_list":["post-68945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-arabie","tag-bae","tag-corruption","tag-doj","tag-independent","tag-scandale","tag-sfo","tag-warner","tag-yamamah"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}