Saturday 30th October 2021
After the document affair
Airbus fears Bundeswehr orders
Although the case of unauthorized possession of Bundeswehr documents by Airbus employees has been criminally closed, fines have been paid and employees have been laid off, there appear to be further consequences for the company. This is what Airbus indicates in its quarterly report.
In the affair of the possible betrayal of Bundeswehr secrets to Airbus employees, the group fears an exclusion from certain armaments projects. The company and the Munich public prosecutor’s office confirmed on Friday evening that Airbus closed the case criminally with a fine of ten million euros. It is therefore official that the Franco-German company has violated its supervisory duties. “The investigations could affect the ability of Airbus Defense and Space GmbH and Airbus Secure Land Communications GmbH to participate in future public procurement projects in Germany,” said the group’s quarterly report published on Thursday.
An Airbus spokesman did not want to comment on how likely an exclusion was. The “Welt am Sonntag” first reported on the latest developments in the affair. Since 2019, the Munich public prosecutor’s office has been investigating the suspicion that members of the armed forces have illegally passed on information about armaments projects to employees of the aviation and armaments company.
Consequences in the company
Airbus had made the case public itself and turned on the prosecutors. As a result, employees were laid off and extensive training courses initiated for the workforce in order to avoid such violations in the future.
Airbus is one of the most important suppliers to the German Armed Forces. In this context, Airbus employees regularly deal with secret military documents. However, the legal possession of such documents in the context of cooperation with government clients must be documented. According to the public prosecutor’s office, it concerns documents of the lowest level of confidentiality, which are marked as classified information “only for official use”. So far there is no evidence of a state security offense or corruption. The investigations against 94 suspects, including from the company and the Bundeswehr, continued, a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor said on Friday.