AgustaWestland case: ED alleges lobbying to influence UPA-era officials and politicians

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has alleged “high level political lobbying” to influence the UPA government's finance minister and “his advisors” to tilt the VVIP chopper deal in favour of M/s AgustaWestland.

The ED opposed Christian Michel’s bail in Delhi High Court last week, alleging that the middleman was responsible for “carrying out the liasoning activities with the political leaders of the then ruling party, bureaucrats and ministers”.

The response, accessed by ET, states “even highly placed bureaucrats were under the influence of Michel”. It further alleges that Michel used “illegal influence of the officers of the Air Force, bureaucrats and political leaders” to secure the VVIP chopper deal for AgustaWestland. It adds “Michel was successful in eliminating the Russians, yet through manipulation, ensured that Sikorsky was in the race so that single vendor situation does not arise, and as Sikorsky would be eliminated, AgustaWestland would get the contract”. As regards alleged kickbacks paid by Michel, ED said Michel incorporated several structures across India, Dubai and Singapore through which kickbacks were routed and paid to “Defence officials, bureaucrats and politicians”.


Michel, the reply reads, "hired two retired Air Force officials to use their networks to track the file movement and remove the obstacles which might be faced by Agusta-Westland." Michel, in a bid to influence public opinion, also used the media, it adds.

In another big claim, ED alleged that in November, “Michel admitted of having engaged/worked with the Negotiation Committee of the Indian Air Force to help M/s AgustaWestland”.

Putting AgustaWestland and its parent company Finmeccanica in the dock, ED said the entity deliberately hired an internal auditor to whitewash the irregularities flagged by an international corruption expert (a lawyer).

An excel sheet prepared by Giorgio Casana, an internal auditor of Finmeccanica, lists payments of Euro 34,135,766 made to different entities/persons. While Michel stated that most narrations in Casana sheet, except a couple, were incorrect, ED says it has evidence.

It adds “the Casana Audit Sheets were prepared on the basis of wrong disclosures/documents to scuttle the investigation and derail the proceedings. The audit by Casana was done to legitimise the payments made by Global Services FZE as O’ Shea (an international corruption expert), the auditor who deals with audits regarding anti-corruption prevention, raised red flags on the payments made to companies of Michel and sought a complete audit as against limited reviews”.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a separate response said that the need for Casana’s Audit arose since “earlier audits which were conducted by PWC, Graham Lawrence, etc.found serious deviations in the working”.

The agency claimed it has collected adequate evidence in execution of Letters Rogatory sent to nine countries and that the role of different departments/stake holders is being investigated.

Elaborating on kickbacks, ED has said “a part of the said proceeds of crime were thereafter used by Michel in acquiring properties and making payments while a major chunk was withdrawn in cash/routed through hawala operators”.

CBI too claimed that Michel had “hired a few retired Indian Air Force and Indian Navy officials to get input/information/documents about defence procurements by India”. Michel, in his defence, recalled a January 2018 Italian court order acquitting AgustaWestland officials Giuseppe Orsi and Bruno Spagnolini, but the CBI argued that the orders of Italian courts cannot be relied upon “as the determination of guilt or innocence of Michel was not even within the scope of the proceedings therein”. CBI has vehemently denied that Michel was acquitted by the Italian courts.

ED further claimed Michel conceded that his Dubai Dubai company, M/s Global Services FZE was a shell company and was used to route kickbacks.