Hear Hear, Saab.

Originally posted by Hand87_5
Airbus is owned by EADS and it’s a private company.

Airbus is owned by EADS and BAE Systems jointly (not equally though, EADS is the majority shareholder but I don’t know the extact %).

Well if you ask Shell, I’m sure they would say they feel Nigeria is a ridiculous country and they would be over the moon if it were less corrupt. The Nigerian elite have always been corrupt and it would be unfair to lay the blame for that on Western oil companies. Whose fault was Biafra?

My comment about involving the UN was meant to be rhetorical. A lot of poverty in the world could be eliminated if governments in various countries were made more accountable and less corrupt.

As for Andersens…the firm as a whole was perfectly OK. But because it was a partnership, the partners can be sued jointly and severally for any liability – ie. if one partner is guilty, all of the partners have to pay for it. This liability is what brought down Andersens, not institutional corruption as the media seem to try to make out.

Point taken, but I still think that it’s very childish. They lost a deal, they just need to get over it!

Denying support to these aircraft gives Airbus no benefit at all, just generates a bit of bad feeling.

Remind me, exactly what does Airbus gain from not supporting these aircraft?

You’re looking at it from the wrong angle Arthur. It’s a case of risk versus reward. Most companes don’t give a toss about “helping” corrupt countries, they just want to safeguard their revenue. If you want to help them, tell the UN to do something for a change.

Also Arthur, I do take mild offence to your charaterisation of accountants. So what if Andersens were dodgy? Do you regard Dutch lawyers as bad, just because of the shenanigans in the OJ Simpson trial? I wouldn’t think so, and in the same manner you can’t use the Andersen/Enron failings to judge accountants from different countries. The UK had its own “mini Enron” many years ago (Guinness/Distillers, Polly Peck) and a lot of faults were fixed back then, though of course I’m not complacent.

Also, you may be right that the amount of “dirty” American money dwarfs the amount of dirty Nigerian money. But we’re not talking about absolute amounts, we’re talking as a proportion of the economy. On that basis, the US is far more advanced than Nigeria. Otherwise, we’d have some country like Burkina Faso No. 1 in the world and countries like Japan and the US last!