NEVER challenge worse... 8^)
Posted on 05/12/2007 2:52:17 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
An investigation of insider trading at the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. has come across a taped call regarding discussions of production delays for the Airbus A380 that took place three months before the setbacks were disclosed and EADS shares tumbled 26 percent.
Jean Galli Douani said he met with French financial police at their headquarters May 2 at the request of investigating judge Xaviere Simeoni. Douani, who unsuccessfully tried to buy Airbuses, said he taped a phone call with an Airbus executive about the A380 discussions at the March 2006 meeting.
"I told them (the police) that I had this conversation," Douani said outside the Paris financial police headquarters immediately after he said he had a two-hour interview with investigators. "I gave them audio evidence."
Simeoni is investigating whether executives at EADS or its Airbus unit who sold EADS shares knew the A380, the world's largest passenger plane, was running almost two years behind schedule. The inquiry began in November after EADS stockholders filed a lawsuit.
Douani said investigators listened to a 20-minute recording of an October call on his cell phone with Alain Garcia, then the executive vice president of engineering at Airbus.
Douani said he told police that company executives met in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on March 7, 2006, and discussed "the technical problems at Airbus, and the only problem was the A380."
The Paris prosecutors' office declined to comment on whether Douani was interviewed.
An EADS lawyer, Thomas Baudesson of the law firm Clifford Chance in Paris, said that Garcia "recalls the conversation, but not the content."
Baudesson said Garcia, now the technical adviser to Airbus Chief Executive Louis Gallois, went to a board meeting in Amsterdam for a presentation on research and development, "not the A380."
EADS spokeswoman Gaelle Pellerin declined to comment on Douani's claims and pointed to a statement April 25 denying a French media report that Garcia spoke about the A380 problems at the meeting March 7, 2006.
Garcia also referred to the April 25 statement. "I am not going beyond that," he said. Garcia joined Airbus in 1969 and is retiring at the end of next month, an April 10 Airbus news release said.
EADS core shareholders and several Airbus officials exercised options and sold shares before the announcement that the A380 was behind schedule. EADS' two biggest corporate shareholders, DaimlerChrysler AG and Lagardere, SCA, each sold 7.5 percent stakes in EADS in April 2006.
In March 2006, former EADS Co-Chief Executive Noel Forgeard sold shares worth 5.2 million euros for 2.5 million euros in gains, regulatory filings show. Forgeard resigned July 2, after EADS shares fell 26 percent when it announced June 13 that the plane's delays would cut operating profit by 2 billion euros, or $2.6 billion, by 2010.
France's stock market regulator, the AMF, is investigating the executives' stock sales as part of a separate probe.
Never say never.
French “financial police?”
You gotta be kidding. The possibilities for parody are endless.
NEVER challenge worse... 8^)
No doubt. In the eyes of the police and government, the worst thing these guys did was fail to tie up all the loose ends and get caught. And in the world of white-collar crime, being caught rarely causes people to be accountable.
Sounds like a Monty Python skit.
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