COLOMBO (REUTERS) - Sri Lanka has ordered a probe into accusations of bribery by European planemaker Airbus to pave the way for the sale of aircraft to state-run carrier SriLankan Airlines, after the firm agreed on a settlement with regulators.
The Indian Ocean nation was among the countries whose officials figured in a US$4 billion (S$5.5 billion) settlement Airbus agreed with European and US regulator as having been accused of getting bribes to clinch sales of its aircraft.
Sri Lanka will conduct "a comprehensive investigation into reports of allegations over financial irregularities", the office of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said in a brief statement on Sunday (Feb 2).
Detailed findings from Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said Airbus had hired the wife of a Sri Lankan Airlines executive as its intermediary and misled export credit agency UKEF over her name and gender, while paying US$2 million to her company.
In a statement, SriLankan Airlines said its chairman and board had directed the management to cooperate fully with any government agency regarding any investigation or prosecution.
The board had also told the management to "preserve and study all available internal documentation with a view to take all possible corrective future action", it added in Sunday's statement.
The alleged corruption in dealings between Airbus and SriLankan Airlines took place between July 2011 and June 2015, the SFO added.
Saturday's announcement of the Airbus settlement followed a nearly four-year investigation spanning sales to more than a dozen overseas markets.
SriLankan Airlines is not the only airline implicated in the scandal.
Malaysia's securities regulator said on Sunday it will examine whether AirAsia Group and its unit AirAsia X broke securities laws, after UK prosecutors accused executives of receiving bribes from Airbus for buying planes.
SFO said last Friday that between October 2013 and January 2015, Airbus' then parent EADS paid US$50 million to sponsor a sports team that was jointly owned by two people described as AirAsia Executive 1 and Executive 2.
The SFO said the executives were rewarded for an aircraft order from Airbus, an allegation AirAsia denied late on Saturday.
AirAsia said it had never made any purchase decisions that were premised on an Airbus sponsorship, and that it would fully cooperate with Malaysia's Anti-Corruption Commission.
