Intel: US rescinds ban on British defense firm implicated in Saudi weapons fraud
The US State Department is rescinding a 9-year-old policy that barred it from doing business with the Saudi subsidiary of a British defense firm, which pled guilty to fraud in a multibillion-dollar arms deal in 2010.
The US State Department is rescinding a 9-year-old policy that barred it from doing business with the Saudi subsidiary of a British defense firm, which pled guilty to fraud in a multibillion-dollar arms deal in 2010.
Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper rescinded the policy today at the request of BAE Systems Saudi Arabia, according to a notice published in the Federal Register. The Barack Obama administration implemented the policy of denial in 2011 after BAE Systems’ pleaded guilty to fraud in the 1985 al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
“The Department has determined that it is in the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States to rescind the policy of denial concerning” BAE Systems Saudi Arabia, Cooper wrote in the notification.
Why it matters: A State Department official told Al-Monitor that BAE Systems has fulfilled the terms of its 2011 consent agreement to settle its 2,591 violations of the Arms Export Control Act and Washington’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
