THE 2020 SETTLEMENT: INTEGRITY BELONGS IN THE COMPANY HISTORY
An account of Airbus should include its serious governance failures. In January 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice described a global resolution of foreign-bribery and export-control matters involving Airbus, with combined penalties exceeding USD 3.9 billion across the participating authorities. The department's account identified the use of third-party business partners to bribe officials and airline executives. These are attributed findings in the official resolution, not a general accusation against every employee or customer. [233]
Airbus' own announcement gave the combined penalties as EUR 3.598 billion plus interest and costs, covering agreements with French, British and U.S. authorities. It also described cooperation and new compliance standards. Recording both accounts makes the history more complete: engineering achievement and sales success do not remove a company's responsibility for how business was obtained. The differing dollar and euro figures belong to the respective announcements and should not be mistaken for additional, separate penalties. [234, 31 January 2020; agreements and EUR 3,598 million penalties]