BAE Systems hires Britain's former envoy to Saudi Arabia

"The senior British diplomat who played a central role in pressuring the Serious Fraud Office to drop its investigation into BAE Systems over the al-Yamamah Saudi arms deal has been hired by the defence group, the Guardian has learned.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, who left the Foreign Office last October, will become BAE's international business development director, focusing on the Middle East and south-east Asia. He starts his new, full-time role next week."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/18/envoy-saudi-bae-systems

I can't help thinking that Arthur Koestler would be fascinated that two occurences like this could NOT be connected.

I'm sure everyone involved in British/Saudi relations, and especially those linked to BAE, are just as pure as the driven snow....

From a year ago :

BAE Systems pays $400m to settle bribery charges.

BAE Systems is to pay up to $450m (£288m) in fines after it pleaded guilty to false statements and accounting practices, notably over deals with Saudi Arabia and Tanzania, in a landmark settlement between the defence giant and the US and UK authorities.

The Serious Fraud Office also dropped proceedings last night against Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, who was charged with making illegal payments to government officials to win jet deals for BAE just last week.

BAE's settlement with the SFO will see it pay £30m – a record criminal fine for a company – specifically relating to "failing to keep reasonably accurate accounting records relating to its activities in Tanzania". The defence giant sold a radar system to the African country in 1999, and its chairman Dick Olver yesterday admitted it made "commission payments to a marketing adviser and failed to accurately record such payments in its accounting records".

He added that the company "failed to scrutinise these records adequately to ensure that they were reasonably accurate and permitted them to remain uncorrected".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bae-systems-pays-400m-to-settle-bribery-charges-1891027.html

How amazing : notably over deals with Saudi Arabia...... :sarcasm: