As late as May 2016, another Airbus executive was sending Abdelnour messages suggesting that Airbus was ready to pay his invoices.
Some of the correspondence was later used in an arbitration case in the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce, where Abdelnour brought a complaint against Airbus for non-payment of invoices.
In 2020, the judge in that case ruled that the messages showed that Airbus and Abdelnour had “carried out business as usual” throughout 2015 and 2016 — up until a December 2016 meeting when an Airbus executive told Abdelnour he could no longer work for the company.
Airbus was ordered to pay Abdelnour 12 million euros. After Kuwaiti officials learned of the arbitration, they looked into whether the payment constituted “commissions” on the contract, despite assurances by Airbus none had been or would be paid, according to leaked correspondence between Airbus and the Kuwaiti government.
Abdelnour’s lawyer and an Airbus representative declined to comment. Faury and a representative of the Kuwaiti government did not respond to reporters’ questions.
‘Closely Coordinated’
In October 2015, Abdelnour sent a furious message to Faury, demanding a response to his unanswered calls and emails at a time when the Kuwait contract still hung in the balance.
Faury wrote back quickly: “I would like to thank you for your action and your support, which are crucial for us. … As you rightly point out, to succeed it is important to be more responsive and more closely coordinated than we have been up to now.”
At the end of the year, Airbus wrapped up an internal “compliance review,” concluding that there were extensive issues with its intermediaries around the world. By 2017, media reports indicated Airbus faced legal issues with more than 20 such middlemen.
Airbus self-reported the findings in early 2016 to British authorities, who in turn alerted the French and American authorities.
In May 2016 — shortly after Airbus reported the issues to the U.K. — a senior Airbus executive, Marwan Lahoud, wrote to Abdelnour to tell him that an additional due diligence check was complete and they could conclude negotiations “related to our cooperation in support of helicopter campaigns, after you have completed the restructuring of your group in accordance with our requests.”
The details of the “requests” were not spelled out. But Lahoud’s letter showed the company was ready to pay Abdelnour’s invoices, despite the apparent freeze on such payments after the internal audit.
“You have accepted, and for this I thank you, to reconsider this level of remuneration and, after tough negotiations, you have agreed to 48 million euros payable over two years,” Lahoud wrote. “Administrative deadlines prevent the conclusion of the corresponding contracts today. Very soon we will be in a position to finalize the execution of this matter.”
Lahoud also left open the possibility of future contracts: “It is understood that in the event of future cooperation on new campaigns, the level of remuneration will be lower.” (Lahoud did not respond to questions sent by reporters.)
Rory Donaldson, program manager on the business integrity team at Transparency International U.K., said the correspondence could prove awkward for Airbus if it showed it was still working with an intermediary after self-reporting to the British authorities.
“To qualify for a deferred prosecution agreement and reduced fines, a company must fully cooperate with the investigating authorities,” Donaldson told OCCRP. “Once it has self-reported, the company should of course cease all corrupt activities, regardless of profitability.”
Airbus Helicopters sealed the Caracal deal with Kuwait in August 2016, a month after the U.K. and France began their investigations.
But despite Lahoud’s assurances, by October 2016 Abdelnour apparently had not been paid for his work on multiple Airbus contracts. Responding to an angry email from Abdelnour that month, Faury apologized for “the inconvenience caused by the ongoing process in our Group.”
“I continue to value very much our relationship,” Faury wrote from his BlackBerry. “I am really sorry for this inconvenience and I trust the Group is doing its very best to resolve the issue. As you know, making good progress in Kuwait is of superior importance to me and Airbus Helicopters. Thank you for your continuous support against the backdrop of this complex situation.”
In May 2017, after the payments still failed to arrive, Abdelnour took the company to arbitration, eventually winning the case in November 2020.
‘Crime of Profiteering’
In January 2020, Airbus struck an agreement with U.S., U.K., and French authorities to pay more than $3.9 billion to defer prosecution.
French prosecutors looked into Airbus’s activities in Kuwait, but they did not make up part of the case against the company, according to France’s national financial prosecutor. However the probes caught the attention of Kuwaiti authorities, who launched their own investigation into the helicopter contract in late 2017.
This inquiry culminated in January this year when Kuwait’s parliament announced their findings, saying that Airbus had paid “commissions” to obtain the contract despite vowing not to make any such payments.
Leaked messages from late 2023 show that Kuwaiti officials at the Ministry of Defense had a long list of grievances related to the contract, including issues with spare parts shortages, an engine malfunction, and untrained pilots and technicians.
According to a signed declaration submitted to Kuwaiti authorities, obtained by reporters, Airbus had to disclose information about any past or future “payment of commission or its equivalent.” Faury wrote “none” beside each of six bullet points requesting details on commissions, before signing his name at the bottom.
When Kuwaiti Ministry of Defense officials got wind of the arbitration judgment in Abdelnour’s favor, they insisted that Airbus turn over unredacted copies of the judgment, leaked messages show.
It’s not clear if Airbus ever did so. But almost five years earlier — while the case was in progress — the company told the Kuwaiti Ministry of Defense it could not discuss the arbitration in detail and refuted Abdelnour’s claims to be owed any payment.
Signed declaration, submitted by Airbus to Kuwaiti authorities.
A draft copy of a parliamentary report on the Airbus deal with Kuwait obtained by OCCRP and Revue XXI holds eight senior Kuwaiti military and government officials responsible for actions and behaviors that “resulted in many damages to the ministry and public funds.” It suspects seven of them of “profiteering,” and one of those seven of “the crime of concealing a fact about the disclosure of commissions paid in contracts entered into by the State.”
A summary of the final report, published on Kuwait’s National Assembly website, claimed that 349 million euros in public funds had been "wasted" on the Airbus contract, and said "some officials in the Ministry [of Defense]" had "covered up" Airbus’s "fraud and deception" over the payment of commissions.
It was not clear if Kuwaiti law enforcement took any action after the parliamentary committee’s report. Kuwait’s parliament was dissolved in May 2024, and so the committee could not be reached for comment.