From this week's Aviation Week. Airbus has agreed to pay a fine of 3.6 billion Euros to French, British and American authorities over a number of cases of bribing overseas government officials to buy Airbus aircraft. Airbus is not admitting guilt and the case never went to court. No Airbus employees are facing charges. Airbus is paying up to get every one off their case. The fine is substantial, Airbus annual revenues are 64 billion Euros for 2018, of which 5 billion Euros are earnings. So Airbus will notice those 3.6 billion Euros. It will hurt. The bribery acts occurred between 2008 and 2015.
One scam was a 5 million Euro bribe to Ghana to clinch the sale of C295 turboprop airlifters. At a guess the C295 is a bit smaller than our C130 Hercules and costs maybe 45 million Euro's each. Other bribery charges include a variety of mid east and far each airlines with names that mean nothing to me, two satellited deals and some military aircraft sales.
I am sure clearing this up makes Airbus' future more predictable. They can go out and sell, sell, sell while Boeing is all wrapped around the 737 MAX axle.
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