Two men funnelled bribes totalling millions of pounds to a Saudi prince and other high-ranking officials to secure lucrative commercial contracts, the opening day of a trial has heard.
The Serious Fraud Office alleges that a total of £9.7m was paid to Prince Miteb bin Abdullah and a group of senior Saudi officials to land the contracts for a British subsidiary of the European aerospace group Airbus.
Mark Heywood QC, for the prosecution, said British middlemen for years had regularly paid bribes to “highly placed” Saudis through offshore companies and Swiss bank accounts in what amounted to “deep corruption”.
Jeffrey Cook, 65, and John Mason, 79, are accused of making corrupt payments to the senior Saudis between 2007 and 2012 as an inducement or reward for favouring the British firm GPT Special Project Management.
Cook faces a second charge of misconduct in public office between 2004 and 2008. He is accused of taking kickbacks while he was an employee of the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD). Cook and Mason have pleaded not guilty.
The trial at Southwark crown court in London heard that GPT had been given a key role in a longstanding arms deal that had been struck by the British and Saudi governments.
Heywood told Mr Justice Bryan that the payments to Miteb and seven other Saudi officials and agents were disguised through opaque records. They did “nothing legitimate to justify the payments”, he alleged.
He said the payments were made to induce the Saudis to give GPT substantial contracts that entailed installing and maintaining communications equipment for a Saudi military unit.
The contracts were run under a formal agreement between the UK and Saudi governments that dated back to the 1970s. Heywood said the MoD had a “significant involvement” in the agreement. The MoD was responsible for approving payments as part of it.
Cook worked for the MoD for more than 30 years. The court heard that in 2006 he was helping to manage the military contracts under the agreement.
Heywood alleged that when questions were being asked around that time about the payments, Cook received kickbacks totalling tens of thousands of pounds and three cars, which in effect doubled his civil service salary, to deflect attention from the purported bribes.
Cook later went on to be the managing director of GPT, where he approved substantial bribes, according to Heywood.
Heywood alleged that the bribes were paid through an offshore company, Simec, based in the Cayman Islands, that was part-owned by Mason. He accused Mason, an accountant, of authorising the bribes to the Saudis, adding that he and Cook had “their hands on the levers of the mechanism” to make the illicit payments.
The QC told the court that the payments were portrayed as being paid to individuals for their advice and assistance on the contracts. In reality, however, he said, the payments were going to middlemen and then passed on to senior Saudis to ensure that the contracts were, and continued to be, awarded to GPT.
He alleged that 12% of revenues received by GPT “went out of the door” to pay off the Saudis in payments that were labelled “bought in services”. The amount of money paid in bribes was larger than the profits accrued by GPT, according to Heywood.
The SFO started its investigation in 2012 after two whistleblowers alleged that bribes were being paid.
The trial, which is expected to last two months, continues.
