THE head of European plane-maker Airbus today said he and other officials were innocent of insider trading, and slammed a French probe into the allegations as incompetent, biased and unfair.
The denial from Airbus CEO Tom Enders followed a report that investigators were probing alleged share sales before its parent company EADS announced major delays to the A380 superjumbo in 2006, which sent its stock down sharply.
Mr Enders said leaks about the probe to a French internet site which reported them yesterday were "shocking," and that executives from Airbus and EADS were innocent.
"I know I have done no wrong-doing and I say the same for all the managers who are supposedly involved," he told a news briefing in New Zealand.
"I am absolutely convinced there was no wrong-doing. We will demonstrate that the people who have done the investigation haven`t done that in a competent way," he said.
French web news service Mediapart said that French regulators were probing 17 officials at Airbus and EADS to see if they had sold off shares in light of inside information they had about production delays for the superjumbo.
Mediapart sourced its report to the regulators, France`s Financial Markets Authority or AMF. The head of the AMF criticised the leak, but refused to comment on the contents.
Mr Enders called the leaks "shocking" and "unacceptable" - and insisted that the named executives would fight back.
"We will defend our reputation and our rights to be presumed innocent with all means at our disposal," he said.
"Our names are dragged into the mud ... and we are sitting ducks. So we hope very much that these accusations now come into the open, and then the managers know what they are accused of, so we can defend ourselves."
Mr Enders said the investigation itself was "unfair" and "biased".
"The investigation has been conducted by people who know nothing about our business and don`t even want to know about our business, and are driven by a conspiracy theory," he added.
"As the head of Airbus and a member of the EADS top team, I stand up to say I`m absolutely convinced that we will refute all allegations. We hope that soon we`ll be able to defend ourselves properly, because so far we haven`t."
The double-decker A380 is the largest passenger airline ever built, and has been the centrepiece of Airbus efforts to compete with US rival Boeing. Share this article
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