Criminal investigation of Airbus Group’s civil aviation business launched

The Serious Fraud Office will investigate allegations of corruption

The director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has opened a criminal investigation into allegations of “fraud, bribery and corruption” in the civil aviation business of Airbus Group. 

The allegations relate to irregularities concerning third party consultants. The SFO has called on anyone with information to come forward and report it through their secure and confidential reporting channel.

Airbus said it “continues to cooperate” with the SFO investigation.

In April 2016, Airbus notified authorities of its findings “concerning certain inaccuracies to applications” that were made to receive export credits for some of its customers.  Export credits are used by many governments to support exporters, often by underwriting bank loans offered to overseas buyers of UK products. This led to UK authorities freezing export credit applications by Airbus and calls for an investigation by the SFO.

While little detail was given by Airbus, it was suspected that the inaccuracies centred around Airbus’ failure to notify the UK authorities over the use of agents and other third parties in the export deals that they wanted the UK government to underwrite.

The SFO has said that it can make no further comment at this time.  

In 2015, the Airbus Group – comprising Airbus, Airbus Defence and Space and Airbus Helicopters – generated revenues of €64.5 billion and employed a workforce of around 136,600.