French investigators raided the offices of European aviation giant Airbus last week as part of a corruption probe over a massive 2010 trade deal with Kazakhstan, legal sources said Tuesday.
An Airbus spokesman confirmed the search Thursday in the Paris suburb of Suresnes, telling AFP that the group was “fully committed to cooperating with the authorities”.
The probe, opened in March 2013 and dubbed “Kazakhgate” in France, seeks to establish whether kickbacks were paid to intermediaries in the October 2010 deal under the presidency of conservative Nicolas Sarkozy.
Under the deal worth an overall 2.0 billion euros ($2.4 billion), Eurocopter, now Airbus Helicopters, supplied 45 helicopters to Astana while French group Alstom supplied 295 trains.
Police questioned Airbus CEO Tom Enders, two other top Airbus Group officials and lawyer Noelle Lenoir in October as witnesses at the request of financial investigators.