Avianca's top shareholder says has no knowledge of alleged Airbus bribes

German Efromovich, the majority shareholder in Avianca, said Wednesday he does not have any knowledge of widespread bribes allegedly paid by Airbus. Airbus agreed last week to pay a record $4b in fines after reaching a plea bargain with prosecutors in Britain, France and United States over alleged bribery and corruption stretching back at least 15 years. Avianca on Monday said it had hired a law firm to investigate its relationship with Airbus and determine if it had been a victim of wrongdoing. French prosecutors said in settlement documents that Airbus had agreed to pay multi-million dollar commissions to an agent over jet sales to Avianca, some of which were earmarked for a senior executive at the airline’s parent, Avianca Holdings. The payments were thwarted by a freeze on agent commissions as Airbus tightened processes in 2014, they said. Avianca’s negotiations with Airbus for the purchase of about 180 airplanes for operations in Colombia, Brazil and potentially Argentina were direct and took place without intermediaries, Efromovich said. “We did a totally transparent tender,” Efromovich said. “If Airbus paid something to someone it was pure imbecility because there was no reason to do it. I can’t say who was the source of corruption, I don’t know. There was never a finger of an intermediary that we know of or at least that I knew of.”<br/>