Thales and the state ordered to pay nearly one billion dollars to Taiwan
Posted by admin | Under Uncategorized, calculation, facts, networks, success Tuesday May 4, 2010The Thales group has been sentenced by a tribunal in Paris to repay hundreds of millions of dollars in litigation on Taiwan frigates, said Monday the AFP Thales and a source familiar with the matter confirmed a report in Le Figaro.
By this decision, the arbitral tribunal (three judges selected by agreement by both parties) condemns Thales to repay overpaid commissions to middlemen to get the contract for sale of six frigates to Taiwan by France in 1991.
"The award was notified today (Monday, editor's note) to Thales in Paris by an international tribunal. Thales was ordered to pay damages.It is notified of a total and we will specify in the evening figures concerning Thales ", told AFP a spokesman of the group.
According to Le Figaro, Thales will pay 591 million dollars, a sum plus interest and costs of arbitration, which should be about one billion dollars.
Article 18 of the contract "Bravo", codename file frigates, explicitly prohibited from paying intermediaries under penalty of restitution payments made in Taiwan.
But an investigation by a Swiss magistrate found that substantial sums had been paid by Thomson-CSF (now Thales) to intermediaries whose principal, Andrew Wang, had been asked to persuade Taiwan to choose the French ships. The Swiss court has blocked 520 million belonging to Mr.Wang.
This discovery has led Taiwan to enter an arbitration tribunal in 2001 for the reimbursement of fees.
Although Thales has been a leader in the contract "Bravo", 70% of the contract frigates returned to the Directorate of Naval Construction (DCN), a public company and whose intervention in the contract was guaranteed by the state.
According to several sources familiar with the situation who spoke before the decision notified on Monday, if convicted of Thales, the state would have to pay 70% of the total sum claimed to Thales.