Airbus

Airbus   (Arms manufacturer, Aerospace manufacturer)
Formation	18 December 1970
Founder	•  Roger Béteille •  Felix Kracht •  Henri Ziegler •  Franz Josef Strauss
Headquarters	Leiden, The Netherlands, Toulouse, France
Interest of	Air France Flight 296, Germanwings Flight 9525
Member of	Atlantic Council/Corporate Members
Sponsor of	The Alphen Group
Produces 50% of all jet aircraft in the world. Largest airliner manufacturer during the 2020s. Accused of bribery of multiple countries. Received a ban from a group of dozens of banks for "involvement in nuclear weapons production".

Airbus SE is a European multinational aerospace corporation. The company's primary business is the design and manufacturing of commercial aircraft. The company also has separate military, space and helicopter divisions. As of 2019, Airbus is the world's largest manufacturer of airliners as well as the leading helicopter manufacturer.

Nuclear Weapons

Airbus has contracts withthe UK for support in their missile defence system, and supplies the French Navy for their nuclear weapons program.

Cluster bomb allegation

In 2005 the Government Pension Fund of Norway recommended the exclusion of several companies producing cluster bombs or components. EADS and its sister company EADS Finance BV were among them, arguing that EADS manufactures "key components for cluster bombs". The criticism was centred around TDA, a joint venture between EADS and Thales S.A. TDA produced the mortar ammunition PR Cargo, which can be considered cluster ammunition, however this definition has since been successfully battled by EADS. EADS and its subsidiaries are now regarded as fulfilling all the conditions of the Ottawa Treaty.

Government subsidies

In May 2011, the Appellate Body confirmed that the EU and four of its member States (Germany, France, the UK, and Spain) conferred more than $18 billion in subsidized financing to Airbus and had caused Boeing to lose sales of more than 300 aircraft and significant market share throughout the world. In fact, in looking at the effect of the EU subsidies, the original WTO panel that first heard the case and the Appellate Body agreed that "[w]ithout the subsidies, Airbus would not have existed … and there would be no Airbus aircraft on the market. None of the sales that the subsidized Airbus made would have occurred." None of these findings were altered in the May 2018 compliance appellate report, which confirmed that the EU provided additional billions of euros in subsidized financing to Airbus.

Crashes

Full articles: Germanwings Flight 9525, Air France Flight 296

The company has been involved in the "investigations" on several occasions after its planes crashed.

Corruption

Airbus Bribery Scandal: New Investigations Opening Worldwide

Insider trading investigation

On 2 June 2006 co-CEO Noël Forgeard, Airbus CEO Gustav Humbert and twenty-one other executives are^[When?] under investigation as to whether they knew about the delays in the Airbus A380 project which caused a 26 % fall in EADS shares when publicised. The French government's actions were also under investigation.

Bribery allegations

Airbus paid £3bn in penalties after admitting it had paid huge bribes to land contracts in 20 countries in 2020. Anti-corruption investigators hailed the result as the largest ever corporate fine for bribery in the world after judges declared that the corruption was “grave, pervasive and pernicious”.

South Africa

In 2003 Tony Yengeni, former chief whip of South Africa's African National Congress, was convicted of fraud worth around US$5 billion relating to an arms deal with South Africa, in which Airbus (formerly EADS) were major players. It was claimed that Airbus had admitted that it had "rendered assistance" to around thirty senior officials, including defence force chief General Siphiwe Nyanda, to obtain luxury vehicles.

 

Employee on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed	End
Philippe Camus	Executive Co-Chairman	2001	2005

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