The proceedings concerning the complaint filed by former Defense Minister Hans Peter Doskozil (SPÖ) in 2017 against the aircraft manufacturer Airbus in the Eurofighter case were dropped by the Vienna Regional Criminal Court on Monday.
Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner (ÖVP) took note of the move and immediately instructed the President of the Procurator Fiscal’s Office, Wolfgang Peschorn, to examine all further legal steps and initiate them if possible. The aim is to make amends “and to ensure that the Austrian taxpayer gets his due”.
The reasons for the dismissal are as follows: “In its reasoning, the Regional Court for Criminal Matters Vienna assumes that Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH would have been able to deliver at any time and that it would also have been technically possible for it to convert Eurofighters from Tranche 1 Block 5 to Eurofighters from Tranche 2 Block 8. Furthermore, the Regional Court for Criminal Matters Vienna assumed that even a deception regarding the pricing of countertrade costs in the amount of EUR 183.4 million could not constitute fraud because it could not be established that the Republic of Austria would actually have refrained from concluding a contract if it had been aware of the non-contractual pricing, as Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH had been the best bidder and the price determination in purchase contract negotiations did not depend solely on the wishes of the buyer. Furthermore, the inclusion of countertrade costs was not considered unusual. In conclusion, the Regional Court for Criminal Matters Vienna stated that the decision-makers at Airbus and Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH at the time could not be proven to have acted with subjective intent. In connection with the agreement concluded between Airbus and the American authorities on 30 January 2020, in which Airbus admitted that a partial amount of the purchase price of 55.1 million euros paid by the Republic of Austria had been used for ‘political contributions’, the Vienna Regional Criminal Court, contrary to the opinion of the WKStA, is of the opinion that this is not relevant for the assessment of the fraud allegations made against Airbus and Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH.” In an initial reaction, Doskozil (SPÖ) sees the dropping of the fraud charges as a “genuine scandal”. It is a “slap in the face for Austrian taxpayers” that the Austrian judiciary apparently has no interest in investigating the well-founded allegations of fraud against Airbus. However, the main part of the Eurofighter case, which has now been handed over to the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Economic Affairs and Corruption (WKStA) on charges including bribery and breach of trust, is still open.
