The UK defence company BAE Systems now is alleged of using a secret payments system to channel more than £13m to another offshore company based in the British Virgin Islands and linked to David Hart, the controversial former Conservative defence adviser.
The company named Defence Consultancy Ltd (DCL) was registered anonymously under the BVI law in 1997. Mr Hart’s representatives say that none of the payments were linked to BAE’s arms deals with Saudi Arabia on the amount of £40bn, which were at the centre of corruption inquiries.
This is the last allegation that emerged from corruption investigations into BAE Systems, being conducted by prosecutors from three countries – Switzerland, Sweden, and the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Previous BAE case that included six continuing SFO investigations was on the commission in the amount of hundreds of millions of pounds, transferred through the BVI-registered Red Diamond Trading and Poseidon Trading Investments to confidential agents all around the world.
By the information from legal sources, the payments to the BVI-based Defence Consultancy Ltd, were among the biggest discovered by the SFO when its started its inquiry. However, in the course of investigation no connection was revealed with any of BAE’s arms deals in Europe, African countries and in the Middle East region.
The sources close to the arms industry say that Mr Hart was hired by BAE to promote its interests in the US, where the company was involved in a series of joint deals and acquisitions. When asked by Guardian, BAE has refused to explain why it had paid Mr Hart so much money through an offshore BVI company, as well as to reveal the purpose of its elaborate operations with Red Diamond.