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Jean-Paul Gut

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Jean-Paul Gut, (born on 1 July 1961) was executive director of marketing, strategy and international development at EADS. In 2007, he founded a consulting company, Coolmore International, based in London.

Biography

Studies

Jean Paul Gut graduated from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris with a master's degree in Economy.

Career

Matra

Jean-Paul Gut's career began in 1983 as Export Vice President for Matra Défense, part of the Matra Group. In 1988, he became the Export Marketing and Sales Executive Director. In 1990, he served as Executive Vice President of International Operations for Matra Défense Espace. Three years later, 1993, he advanced to the position of Senior Executive Vice President, in charge of international operations for the Lagardère Group. In 1996, he became the Senior Executive Vice President for Matra BAE Dynamics.

In March 1998, Jean-Paul Gut joined the Board of Management of the Lagardère Group as Managing Director, in charge of international operations and State of the Art Technology Sector. He also became as a member of the executive management of EADS Company South Africa (Pty) Ltd. On May 11, 2005, Jean-Paul Gut served as the Director of Dassault Aviation SA, and as Executive Director of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. N.V.

EADS (now Airbus)

When EADS was created in 2000, he became a member of the board and member of the executive committee. In 2005, he was promoted to the position of executive director of EADS, and director of EADS International. In June 2006, when Jean-Louis Gergorin left EADS, he was assigned to be in charge of the company's global strategy, thus becoming executive director of marketing and strategy, overseeing all international operations.
A year later, in June 2007, he officially resigned from EADS. His severance pay was said to be 2.8 million euros, the equivalent of a 24-month salary for 24 years worked at the company. Right before he left EADS, he struck a 16 billion euro deal with Qatar Airways for the sale of 80 A350.
In fact, he received more than 80 million euros, in a covered payment, as was revealed later by investigations newspapers.

Consulting Company

Jean-Paul Gut created his own consulting company in London, catering to French and European companies looking to expand internationally, and connecting foreign investors with European corporations working on large-scale development projects. One of his main clients is Airbus, thus he remains an influential person within the company. Jean-Paul Gut is also the founder of the ARMAT GROUP in 2008, focusing on private equity, real estate and asset backed finance.

Controversies and corruption scandals

The EADS case

In June 2008, Jean-Paul Gut was indicted of insider trading when he was EADS’ executive director of marketing and strategy. The EADS case, which goes back to early 2006, arose after it was revealed that hundreds of EADS employees had sold their shares a few weeks before Airbus announced delivery delays of the A380, which caused Airbus to plummet in the stock market, losing 26% of its share price in one day. In 2006, Jean-Paul Gut had sold 175,000 shares for a 1,773,250 euros capital gain. Jean-Paul Gut denied the allegations.

On December 17, 2009, the AMF (French financial authorities) firmly rejected all accusations of wrongdoings made towards Jean-Paul Gut and the other EADS executives implied in the EADS case.

The Airbus bribery scandals

Aircraft sale to Egypt in 2003

Secret documents obtained by Mediapart in France and German publication Der Spiegel show for the first time how Airbus gave direct orders to an intermediary to hand out 9.5 million euros in commissions to help clinch the sale of its aircraft in Egypt.
Mediapart reports that Abbas al-Yousef, a former fighter pilot and colonel in the United Arab Emirates air force who lives in Dubai, used his know-how and contacts to help Airbus, as he did in previous years to help GIAT and other French defense companies in France.
Mediapart adds that "he was in direct contact with Jean-Paul Gut, who was then the all-powerful commercial director of the group, and who quit Airbus in 2007 with a total package worth 86 million euros. It was Gut who set up and ran the EADS International department which became SMO-IO when EADS became Airbus, and which managed the system of intermediaries now at the centre of the criminal investigations".

Aircraft sale to Libya

Jean-Paul Gut was taken into custody in September 2019 for commissions paid to Alexandre Djouhri, cited in this by an article in Médiapart of September 4, 2019, relayed on the Facebook page of this newspaper: "Former Airbus executives Marwan Lahoud and Jean-Paul Gut were taken into police custody and confronted last June in the Libyan affair. In 2009, Claude Guéant had put pressure on Airbus (ex-EADS ) to pay a commission for the benefit of Alexandre Djouhri on the sale of planes to Libya, and the judges discovered that a sum of 4 million euros had been directed in early 2010 to a mysterious Lebanese company."

In February 2020, Airbus pays a record 3,6 billion euros fine, "to end 12 years era of “massive corruption“ "

In January 2020, the French press announced that the French, British and American courts had validated the agreements made earlier this week by Airbus and the French National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF), the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Department of Justice ( DOJ) in the United States under which the European group AIRBUS undertakes to pay fines totaling 3.6 billion euros: 2.08 billion in France as part of a public interest legal agreement (CJIP ), 984 million in the United Kingdom and 526 million in the United States.

Today dissolved, the group's unit called Strategy and Marketing Organization (SMO), led by Marwan Lahoud, and formerly led by Jean-Paul Gut, was at the heart of the matter.

Almost all the articles published on these agreements underline that the ex-leaders may be worried within the framework of a preliminary investigation still in progress.
The agreement signed with SFO, which also gives details on the corrupting and fraud mechanisms used in 20 corruption cases, is accessible here.
The agreement signed with the DoJ in the USA is accessible here.

Sources and references

  1. ^ "Stocks".
  2. "Stocks".
  3. "Finfacts: Irish business, finance news on economics".
  4. "Gut ache at EADS as Jean-Paul quits - ArabianBusiness.com". Archived from the original on 2014-10-06.
  5. "Another Early Departure at Airbus". Forbes.
  6. "Le Figaro - Actualité en direct et informations en continu".
  7. Buschmann, Rafael (19 October 2017). "Airbus Corruption Scandal: 80 Million Euro Severance Package". Der Spiegel.
  8. "€80-Million Payment: Too golden a handshake".
  9. "UNITED KINGDOM : Lagardere Group Extends Its Reach - 13/12/2007". 13 December 2007.
  10. armatgroup.com. "armatgroup.com".https://www.armatgroup.com/
  11. Souchard, Pierre-Antoine; Vandore, Emma (June 19, 2008). "2nd Former EADS Executive Charged in Insider Trading Probe". The Washington Post. Associated Press. Retrieved 2022-07-03.
  12. "StackPath".
  13. Vandore, Emma (2007-06-11). "Deputy CEO of Airbus parent is leaving - USATODAY.com". Usatoday30.usatoday.com. Retrieved 2022-07-03.
  14. "Daimler faces EADS insider trading trial". thelocal.de. 3 December 2013.
  15. https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/international/020419/documents-show-how-airbus-arranged-secret-commissions-over-aircraft-sales-egypt?page_article=1
  16. https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/international/020419/documents-show-how-airbus-arranged-secret-commissions-over-aircraft-sales-egypt?page_article=1
  17. https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/040919/gueant-djouhri-les-juges-sur-la-piste-des-commissions-occultes-d-airbus
  18. https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/020220/airbus-paye-36-milliards-d-euros-pour-solder-douze-ans-de-corruption-massive
  19. https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/aeronautique-defense/corruption-airbus-evite-le-pire-838561.html
  20. https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/international/280120/airbus-agrees-deal-bribery-investigations-uk-us-and-france
  21. https://www.ft.com/content/f7a01a60-442b-11ea-abea-0c7a29cd66fe
  22. https://www.transparency.org/news/pressrelease/airbus_bribery_investigation_highlights_power_of_international_cooperation
  23. The contract signed with SFO specifies in particular:"(...)8. The Agreement brings to a close the SFO's investigation into Airbus and its controlled subsidiaries other than the SFO's separate investigation into GPT (Special Project Management) Ltd ("GPT"). The SFO has indicated that it has no intention of conducting any further investigation ar prosecution of Airbus and its controlled subsidiaries (other than GPT) for the matters disclosed to it prior to this Agreement, and in the agreements reached with the PNF, the DOJ and the DOS. (...) 10. The Agreement does not provide any protection against prosecution of any natural persons." N.B.: Complete versions of the 3 agreements signed can be found here: Martine Orange et Yann Philippin, «Airbus paye 3,6 milliards d’euros pour solder douze ans de «corruption massive», on Mediapart. The agreements give details on the corrupting and fraud mechanisms used in 20 corruption cases.
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