Published October 26, 2017 3:38am
By CYRIL ALTMEYER AND TIM HEPHER, Reuters
PARIS, France - Dassault Aviation and two other French
aerospace companies said on Wednesday they had been fined a combined 227
million euros ($268 million) in Taiwan, settling what sources familiar with the
case have described as a 25-year-old dispute over an arms sale.
Warplane maker Dassault said it had been fined 134
million euros, while radar supplier Thales said it was due to pay 64 million
and engine maker Safran said it accounted for 29 million.
"The industrial companies are considering the steps
to be taken following this decision," the companies said in separate
statements.
The total fine corresponds to the amount the Taiwan state
had been seeking in arbitration over the allegedly wrongful use of commissions
in the sale of 60 Mirage fighters to the island in 1992.
It follows a then-record bribes fine of 630 million euros
imposed by a French court on the French government and Thales in 2011 over the
use of commissions to sell frigates to Taiwan in 1991, a deal that led to a
major kickbacks scandal in France.
Dassault said the new case dated back to 1992 and two
people close to the matter said it concerned the sale of Mirage jets.
None of the three companies made provisions for the
fines.
Taiwan pursued the three companies for $260 million in
2002 but dropped the case a year later, only to relaunch its claim for 226
million euros, claiming this represented the use of commissions that had been
banned in the fighter contract.
The arms deals with Taiwan led to a chill for several
years in relations between France and China, which has asserted sovereignty
over Taiwan since 1949.
China warned Taiwan last month it would "reap the
consequences" of promoting formal independence. Taiwan said it was a
reality that the Republic of China, the island's formal name, was a sovereign
country.
The scandal around French arms sales to Taiwan in the
early 1990s was one of a series of cases that underpinned accusations of
widespread corruption during the final years of the late French President
Francois Mitterrand.
It engulfed senior executives at the former Elf oil
company and lay at the heart of the tortuous "Clearstream" affair a
decade ago in which a prime minister was accused of plotting to smear his rival
Nicolas Sarkozy, who later became president.
The fog over France's deals with Taiwan is clearing just
as the French aerospace industry faces new turmoil over the use of sales agents
at planemaker Airbus, which says it could have to pay significant fines amid UK
and French investigations.
Airbus says it shared its own findings on suspect
paperwork with UK authorities, triggering the probes, but is said to be shaken
internally by the affair, which has placed growing pressure on Chief Executive
Tom Enders.
Legal experts estimate Airbus could eventually face fines
of several billion euros, eclipsing the financial fallout from France's Taiwan
arms deals or a bribery fine of 687 million pounds ($911 million) imposed on
Rolls-Royce in Britain earlier this year. ($1 = 0.8467 euros) ($1 = 0.7543
pounds) — Reuters
Original post: gmanetwork.com
Mirage 2000: Details
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