Finmeccanica CEO Giuseppe Orsi and former AgustaWestland boss Bruno Spagnolini are punished with two years jail for falsifying invoices, but cleared them of the more serious corruption charges in the Rs. 3,737-crore VVIP chopper deal.
Orsi and Spagnolini were facing trial in connection with the 2010 contract for supplying 12 VVIP AgustaWestland choppers to the Indian Air Force. India had scrapped the contract in January amid allegations that Euro 51 million was paid to middlemen in bribes and later imposed a partial ban on Finmeccanica, which owns UK-based AgustaWestland.
India in August banned the state-controlled Italian company from future contracts after terminating the helicopter agreement in January 2013 with only three aircraft delivered.
