Al-Yamamah arms deal

Al Yamamah (Arabic: اليمامة, lit. 'The Dove') is the name of a series of record arms sales by the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia, paid for by the delivery of up to 600,000 barrels (95,000 m³) of crude oil per day to the British government.^[1] The prime contractor has been BAE Systems and its predecessor British Aerospace. The first sales occurred in September 1985 and the most recent contract for 72 Eurofighter Typhoon multirole fighters was signed in August 2006.

Mike Turner, then CEO of BAE Systems, said in August 2005 that BAE and its predecessor had earned £43 billion in twenty years from the contracts and that it could earn £40 billion more.^[2] It is Britain's largest ever export agreement, and employs at least 5,000 people in Saudi Arabia.^[3]

In 2010, BAE Systems pleaded guilty in a United States court to charges of false accounting and making misleading statements in connection with the sales.^[4] An investigation by the British Serious Fraud Office into the deal was discontinued after political pressure from the Saudi and British governments.^[5][6]