Questions remain on BAE settlement

The deal for BAE Systems to pay more than $400 million in fines and plead guilty to criminal offenses in the US and Britain marks the end of an epic and highly political corruption case–and the start of questions about whether justice has been done. While Britain's Serious Fraud Office stressed how transatlantic co-operation had led to a good, if "pragmatic", result, some critics said the penalty from London was light and a pale contrast to the harsher fines and tougher language in Washington. The arguments highlight the emotiveness of a case that became emblematic of Britain's ambiguous attitudes to corporate corruption, particularly after pressure from then prime minister Tony Blair and others drove the SFO three years ago to stop probing BAE's Saudi Arabian arms deals. The conclusion of the case turned out to be as bathetic as its conduct had been contentious, during five and a half years of investigation into suspicions that BAE used a worldwide network of more than 200 agents to bribe officials in at least six countries on four continents.