EADS & Airbus chief Robin Southwell, big time crook?

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Now removed from the Internet by lawyers?

The cameron crony, the private jet company, and a crash landing that cost taxpayers £100m
11/05/2014
Exclusive: The Cameron crony, the private jet company, and a crash landing that cost taxpayers £100m
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-the-cameron-cr ony-the-private-jet-company-and-a-crash-landing-that-cost-taxpayers-10 0m-9350090.html

Robin Southwell is one of the PM's most trusted business leaders. But there is one blot on his career. Corporate Jet Services, a company that lays on planes for the rich and famous, collapsed in 2007 – costing its main creditor, HBOS, about £100m (and helping to bring about the bank's state bailout, at vast expense to the taxpayer). Tom Harper asks what was HBOS doing lending so much money to such a small firm. And how is it that Mr Southwell and other directors of the firm ended up buying back CJS for a knock-down price?

Take a look at pictures of David Cameron on one of his many globetrotting trips to boost British trade, and there's a good chance you'll see Robin Southwell at his side. The chief executive of the arms giant Eads UK, Mr Southwell is one of the country's most respected and influential businessmen. He was appointed a government ambassador for British industry in 2011, and has accompanied the Prime Minister on trips to India and the Middle East.

In 2012, when Mr Cameron was criticised for using a rented American-made Boeing plane during a business trip to Indonesia, Mr Southwell stepped in to offer him an Airbus model from his own fleet.

The Prime Minister appears to value the assistance of the business leader in developing markets overseas. But Mr Southwell is facing some awkward questions rather closer to home – questions which should also be directed to Bank of Scotland (HBOS), the multibillion-pound bank which had to be rescued by the British taxpayer at the height of the credit crisis because of a catalogue of reckless lending that brought it to the brink of extinction.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-the-cameron-cr ony-the-private-jet-company-and-a-crash-landing-that-cost-taxpayers-10 0m-9350090.html

11/05/2014v6jtrichardpr


On Sunday, 11 May 2014 00:36:13 UTC+1, Micro wrote:


Take a look at pictures of David Cameron on one of his many globetrotting trips to boost British trade, and there's a good chance you'll see Robin Southwell at his side.


Comments......
As of 2013 'Cameron has beaten every record for global wanderlust, with more than 50 visits to foreign states in three years' <sic> with Osborne and Boris close behind him. The request I made of TB was to detail how much (if any) trade and UK jobs these excursions have garnered?
I do not expect an answer because the facts will not support the cost/expense that the tax payer has paid for these visits.

Prime Minister hires plane for £700,000 trade mission ........ Mr Cameron’s office spent a total of £718,708 of taxpayers’ money on chartering the entire plane
He took 131 'delegates' to China last year, including his father-in-law.


Zoe Cunningham
Founder, MD and broadcast journalist
The Truth About the PM's Trade Delegation to China

Posted: 05/12/2013 13:21


If you are an intelligent person, you form your own opinion when you read the news. You understand that certain papers have certain agendas and you interpret articles accordingly. You take things with a pinch of salt.

But not until I joined the recent trade delegation to China, did I realise just how politicised - and hence inaccurate - news becomes.

When you are part of a large initiative like this, you start being briefed about the event a long time before any "news" is published. I received briefings by phone and email, and a week before we left we were briefed in person by the Prime Minister at Number 10. Throughout the trip we have been party to many in-depth ministerial presentations that the news can, by necessity, only cover in brief.

The driving force behind the trade delegation is clear. Chinese import demands are set to rise to $3.4trillion between 2011 and 2020. This is a massive opportunity for Britain.

It has been re-iterated several times throughout the trip that this is the largest UK trade delegation, not just to China but to ever leave British shores. Even if no business opportunities were uncovered by the delegates, this would be a powerful message to send and of great import to British-Chinese relations. The delegation members are extremely diverse - Number 10 and the UKTI have worked hard to include startups and small business who are usually excluded from these trips. Far from being a plane full of Cameron's cronies, even delegates vocally critical of the government have been included.

There has been great opportunity on the trip to showcase existing contracts, or those that are in the process of being agreed between UK and Chinese organisations. Tim Reeve, COO of the Victoria and Albert museum, was able to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chinese museums that they are to provide consultancy to, the National Theatre is to produce War Horse for the Chinese market and Manchester based Chinese sauce brand Sweet Mandarin have finalised a contract to sell their sauce back into China, a move that their CEO Lisa Tse cheekily described as being like "selling snow to the Eskimos".

For each delegate on board this trip is offering a unique opportunity to learn about trade with China, and to start to make contacts that could one day lead to business deals like those already being celebrated. Much has been made in the news of Cameron's perceived lack of focus on human rights, but these trades that are being done by individual organisations will form the ties between our two countries that will help to prevent war and help the Chinese to lift more people from poverty and, gradually, reform their governance to be more in line with the West.

Why does no one write that in the newspapers?>>>>

[TonyGosling]

European Airbus Defence and Space (EADS) becomes Airbus

2 Jan 2014 ... FT ... EADS, the European aerospace and defence group created in 2000, on Thursday changed its name to Airbus. The name European Aeronautic Defence and Space company did not have the resonance of Airbus, the group’s most famous brand that is used on its commercial aircraft.

ALSO sanitising its mass murder arm under cover of a hackable commercial airliner

[TonyGosling]

Airbus investigated in Serious Fraud Office inquiry into third-party consultants
By Press Association Published: 13:01, 8 August 2016 | Updated: 13:02, 8 August 2016
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3728593/Airbus-investigate d-Serious-Fraud-Office-inquiry-party-consultants.html

The Serious Fraud Office has launched a criminal investigation into alleged fraud, bribery and corruption at civil aviation giant Airbus Group.

The European aircraft maker said it was co-operating with investigators from the UK law enforcement agency, which said the inquiry had been opened in July.

The company revealed in April that it was in discussions with the British authorities over "inaccuracies" it had found in applications it had made for UK Government credit guarantees.

An Airbus spokesman said at the time that errors had been uncovered in an internal compliance review. The UK export credit agency said it was for the SFO to decide whether to pursue the matter further.

In a statement released on Sunday, Airbus said: "Airbus Group has been informed by the SFO that it has opened a criminal investigation into allegations of fraud, bribery and corruption in the civil aviation business of Airbus Group relating to irregularities concerning third party consultants. Airbus Group continues to cooperate with the SFO."

An SFO spokesman confirmed: "The director of the Serious Fraud Office has opened a criminal investigation into allegations of fraud, bribery and corruption in the civil aviation business of Airbus Group. These allegations relate to irregularities concerning third-party consultants."

The SFO appealed for anyone with information about the case to contact them via a secure and confidential reporting channel on their website www.sfo.gov.uk.

The use of third-party middlemen in major commercial deals has been the target of anti-bribery legislation around the world.

Guidance issued for companies under the UK's Bribery Act 2010 warns that "the bribery risks associated with reliance on a third party agent representing a commercial organisation in negotiations with foreign public officials may be assessed as significant and accordingly require much more in the way of procedures to mitigate those risks".

Airbus has its headquarters in Toulouse, France, and has major UK operations at Filton, near Bristol, and Broughton in north Wales.