[webreac]

Another way of presenting the same facts is that Airbus has done business with a country where corruption and bribes are the norm. The U.S. intercepted communications and used them to blackmail buyers so that they chose Boeing instead of the best airplanes.

[ethbr1]

Exactly. It's fair to say that at the level of national champion industries and state-to-state deals, countries' intelligence organizations are always involved.

Maybe they're doing defense (discovering bribes swaying the bid to another country, or monitoring their own country's bribes) or offense (stealing competitor bid data and specifications), but they're not idle.