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At issue are potential multibillion-euro fines and multibillion-euro losses. Indeed, the very survival of Airbus, with its 134,000 employees and its annual turnover of 67 billion euros ($78.6 billion), could be at stake.
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...similar to the earthquake of corruption that rocked the Munich-based industrial (Siemens) giant in 2006, and continued for years afterward.
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The parallels to the Siemens scandal are difficult to ignore. Both companies do business around the world, including in countries thought to be particularly corrupt, and both did business with fly-by-night companies and employed slippery consultants who received millions of dollars to set up business deals, likely by way of bribing politicians and officials. Both corporations likewise developed a company culture of acceptance for the practice, an understanding that things had always been done that way, that everyone else does it too, and that it is, in fact, the only way such a business can be run.
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EADS International, the sales division in Paris, whose name later changed to SMO, dealt with such customers. It was the "Bull**** Castle" that Enders talks about today. Most of those working there were the product of the French defense company Matra, but two Germans also belonged to the team ...
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Furthermore, it has been alleged that Vector wasn't the first dubious company charged with producing offset deals. In early 2004, a company for the purpose, called Omesco, was established in Cyprus.
... The idea for this Cyprus-based company came from the "Bull**** Castle" in Paris.
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