(Reuters) – U.S. authorities are investigating whether payments by U.S. weapons maker Raytheon Technologies Corp to a consultant for the Qatar Armed Forces may have been bribes intended for a member of the country’s ruling royal family, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday https://on.wsj.com/3l3SZh6, citing people familiar with the matter.
A lawsuit filed in California in 2019 included allegations that Raytheon had funneled around 7 million Qatari riyal, or $1.9 million, in payoffs through a Doha-based defense and security-consulting firm that was part-owned by a brother of Qatar’s ruling emir, WSJ reported.
The lawsuit was dismissed last year on jurisdictional grounds.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission began making inquiries into the allegations after the lawsuit was filed and the justice department soon followed suit, the report said.
Raytheon was not immediately available for comment.
(Reporting by Shreyasee Raj; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
