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| - Kuwait's parliament on Wednesday formed a fact-finding panel to probe alleged kickbacks in a deal between the national carrier and Airbus, which last month paid massive fines to settle bribery scandals. The parliament's decision came after a special debate on allegations that Airbus paid kickbacks to secure a 25-aircraft deal six years ago. It also asked the Audit Bureau, the state accounting watchdog, to investigate the deal, which was reportedly worth billions of dollars, although exact figures were never released. Kuwait Airway Co. in 2014 ordered 15 Airbus 320neo and 10 Airbus 350, with delivery beginning last year and continuing until 2021. Opposition lawmaker Riyadh al-Adasani told the session that several Kuwaiti officials and citizens were mentioned in a settlement struck by Airbus with French, British and American courts on January 31. Under the settlement, Airbus agreed to pay 3.6 billion euros ($3.9 billion) in fines to settle corruption probes into some of its aircraft sales. Investigators in Britain had accused Airbus of failing to prevent persons associated with the company from bribing directors or employees of the airline to "obtain or retain business or advantage". Days after the settlement, Sri Lanka ordered an investigation into a multi-billion dollar aircraft purchase from Airbus after the deal was named in the settlement. The former chief of Sri Lankan Airlines, Kapila Chandrasena, was arrested on February 6 for allegedly receiving bribes relating to the deal. Earlier this month, two senior officials of the Malaysia-based AirAsia stepped aside while authorities probe unusual payments at the carrier, as the fallout from the Airbus scandal reverberated across the industry. Kuwait in recent years also initiated criminal investigations into two large military aircraft deals involving Airbus -- a $9 billion Eurofighter Typhoon warplanes deal and a contract for 30 Caracal military helicopters costing $1.2 billion. The fines agreed last month are expected to weigh heavily on Airbus's 2019 earnings, set to be released on February 13. But the settlement allows it to avoid costly litigation over suspected corruption that emerged from an internal investigation in 2016. sl-oh/sls/sw
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