After the hammering it's received in the Saudi bribe scandal, BAE Systems is now putting out the line that it will be ethical from now on. Don't hold your breath.
A new report into the defense company's conduct has brought in a swag of recommendations including developing and publishing a code of ethical business conduct, scrapping facilitation payments and keeping a register of money spent on gifts and hospitality.
Still, the idea of arming the world ethically is hard to believe. The bottom line is that Britain has to sell arms to the saudis because what would otherwise be its best market, the US, is hardly open because of the protectionist attitudes at Congress. And it doesn't say much for BAE either. As Campaign Against Arms Trade spokesperson, Symon Hill said: "This report will do nothing to reverse BAE's unpopularity with the British public. It is absurd to ask a committee to report on the ethics of an arms company without even considering whether it is ethical to arm dictatorships, or to engage in the arms trade at all."
In any case, it's hard to think this report amounts to anything when its author, Lord Woolf, the former lord chief justice, who was hired by the company to review its conduct, only did it on BAE's terms that he would not investigate the details of allegedly corrupt deals of the past, nor BAE's system of making secret payments to middlemen through offshore accounts. More from The Guardian.
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