BAE systems implicated, fined in bribery scandal

The company that the Manning PNM administration hired to supply Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) to Trinidad and Tobago has been implicated in a bribery scandal in the United Kingdom, according to a report in The Telegraph newspaper.

The Telegraph reported Tuesday that BAE Systems was ordered to pay a £500,000 fine and £250,000 costs to settle a long-running corruption probe into the sale of a radar and air traffic control system to Tanzania.

The newspaper said years of bribery investigations into BAE Systems ended when the company pleaded guilty to failing to keep proper accounting records in Tanzania and was fined.

BAE reportedly made part of a secret £7.7m payment to a businessman in Tanzania as a bribe to help secure a radar contract. Part of the money was used to bribe decision-makers in Tanzania.

BAE admitted paying the money to its agent, Sailesh Vithlani, for his part in securing the £28 million contract. However, the company denied there was any corruption.

BAE also conceded that most of the money paid to Vithlani passed through a secretive company it set up in the British Virgin Islands and admitted in court that it failed to keep proper accounts of the transactions. The accounting records show the money was used as “payments for technical services.”

The fine and plea bargain related to one charge of failing to keep accounting records, the Telegraph reported, adding that no charges or prosecution were brought for corruption against BAE.

The judge said the arrangements showed the company meant to hide the payments, describing BAE's behaviour as “hear no evil, speak no evil.”

Mr Justice Bean said it was “naïve in the extreme” to think that BAE’s agent in Tanzania, Shailesh Vithlani, was paid millions of dollars simply as a “well-paid lobbyist”.

BAE accepted that there was “a high probability" that part of the money it paid Vithlani "would be used in the negotiation process to favour BAE”, the paper said.

In April 2007 the Manning government signed a deal for US$234 million with the UK’s VT Group for three OPVs. That contract was passed on to BAE Systems it acquired sole ownership of the shipbuilding venture.

The new People's Partnership government moved swiftly to cancel the deal after discovering problems with cost overruns and delays.