The US State Department is rescinding a 9-year-old policy that barred it from doing business with the Saudi subsidiary of a British defense firm, which pled guilty to fraud in a multibillion-dollar arms deal in 2010.
Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper rescinded the policy today at the request of BAE Systems Saudi Arabia, according to a notice published in the Federal Register. The Barack Obama administration implemented the policy of denial in 2011 after BAE Systems’ pleaded guilty to fraud in the 1985 al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
