3 cos. fined $75M for selling China military tech
A view of a United Technology Corp.'s Pratt & Whitney sign is shown December 8, 2003, in East Hartford, Connecticut. / Getty Images
(CBS News) United Technologies Corp. and two of its subsidiaries Thursday pleaded guilty to illegally shipping defense parts to China for use in building China's first military attack helicopter.
UTC, Pratt and Whitney Canada (PWC), and Hamilton Sundstrand agreed to pay $75 million to settle criminal charges, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.
In a case brought by U.S. prosecutors in Connecticut, United Technologies was accused of shipping parts for the Z-10 helicopter in violation of a 1989 ban on defense exports put in place after Tiananmen Square.
The Justice Department also accused the defense contractors of essentially hiding the shipments by making false statements and belated disclosures to U.S. government officials.
The Z-10 which went into service in 2009 is a gunship armed with 30 mm cannons, anti-tank weapons and air-to-air missiles.
The government alleges that the U.S. contractors were attempting to curry favor with Chinese defense officials in hopes of gaining entree to China's much more profitable civilian helicopter market, potentially worth up to $2 billion.
From the $75 million fine, "roughly $20.7 million of this sum is to be paid to the Justice Department. The remaining $55 million is payable to the State Department as part of a separate consent agreement to resolve outstanding export issues, including those related to the Z-10. Up to $20 million of this penalty can be suspended if applied by UTC to remedial compliance measures," the Justice Department said in a press release.
The Justice Department said that while China was developing the Z-10 helicopter, PWC sold them the engines for it, which operated on specialized software made in the U.S.
PWC had attempted to skirt the U.S. ban on military technology by claiming they already sold China the engines for use in commercial helicopters.
Assistant Secretary Shapiro, of the State Department's Bureau of Political and Military Affairs, said, "Today's $75 million settlement with United Technologies Corporation sends a clear message: willful violators of U.S. arms export control regulations will be pursued and punished. The successful resolution of this case is the byproduct of the tireless work of our compliance officers and highlights the relentless commitment of the State Department to protect sensitive American technologies from being illegally transferred."
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Plutarchy is here and will be complete this year, after all, NOT one crook in the financial, fossil fuel industry (BP-DW Horizon/Exxon/Mobile spills) no one has gone to court on these. A slap on the hand and a fine! SHAMEFUL, but the most the so called news can cycle a report on are meaningless compared to these TREASONOUS actions.
What a novel idea, buying your way out of criminal charges.
When, and under what law did that become legal?
That used to be called bribery and corruption. Whoever negotiated this deal should be in prison along with the CEOs of the firms.
Madoff should have thought of that one, as should have the drug cartel bosses.
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What a load.
What it says is no one will do any time for the crime.
Make the money and pay a percentage back in fines - if you even get caught - is the message this sends to industry.
Disgusting.
They knew it when they bought it.
If you have done any business internationally, in the past 15 years or so, you will have noticed the dollar steadily falling in value against major Asian currencies.
This is due, in part, to the Chinese short-selling that debt, flooding the market for US securities, making new issues harder to sell, and thus pushing down the dollar's value.
In fact, if the Chinese decide to write off the debt as worthless, it will destroy the US dollar's remaining value, thus crashing the US economy.
Be careful of what you wish for.
That is why the US is whining that the Chinese ought to let their own currency "float", so the currency speculators can artificially devalue the yuan.
But the Chinese, obviously much more clever at money matters than the US, are not taking the bait.
Besides, the buyer is not the party in the wrong, it is the sellers' fault entirely. They were told not to sell, but no one can tell the Chinese not to buy.
Guess what "real", the Chinese already know we cannot pay off the debt.
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So their Ponzi depends on our Ponzi? When the monetarty system crashes, they all crash. And so far the US has one huge advantage, we know how to dig out. In some respects it will be like the WW2 aftermath. We'll be the first back up and running and will basically own the world for a generation. All we have to do is keep each other from starving and we win. My advice, go friend a farmer and stash 20 or 30 cases of Jose Cuervo. It will be worth more than gold, and be a lot easier to trade.