U.K.-#Saudi Corruption Case: Bribes Amounted to Winning the Lottery - Bloomberg

U.K.-Saudi Corruption Case: Bribes Amounted to Winning the Lottery - Bloomberg

Bribes paid out to Saudi Arabian officials by businessmen linked to an Airbus SE subsidiary amounted to winning the lottery, prosecution lawyers said at a London trial.

The Serious Fraud Office alleges that two Britons used bribes to win U.K. government contracts with the Saudi Arabian military between 2007 and 2012. The men deny all the charges.

Jeffrey Cook, managing director of GPT Special Project Management, and John Mason, a financial officer at GPT’s contractors, are on trial in London accused of paying out as much as 9.7 million pounds ($12 million) in bribes.

The SFO says the bribes went to “highly placed” Saudi Arabians including National Guard officials, including a son of the former Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and a Lebanese businessman who the prosecution described as being “very close” to the King.

GPT was accused of paying as much as 4 million pounds a year to Simec, a Bahrain-based company co-owned by Mason, that was then used for bribes. GPT was taken over by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space in 2007, which was later to become Airbus, prosecutors told the jury.

Prosecution lawyer Mark Heywood explained to a jury on Friday how the money flowed in a variety of opaque ways from Simec through the global international bank accounts of other companies before reaching the officials.

The alleged crimes were described by Heywood as “deep corruption in overseas defense contracts.”

Cook, who was a civil servant at the U.K.‘s Ministry of Defense for more than 30 years, is also charged with abusing public trust by getting commission on contracts when working in the department.

The trial is expected to last two months.