Airbus announced this month the establishment of an independent review panel to help improve its compliance controls and culture, as the European aircraft maker faces numerous investigations into allegations of bribery and corruption across several countries.

In its 2016 annual report, Airbus said it’s facing a series of investigation over bribery allegations in Austria, Greece, Germany, Indonesia, Pakistan, Romania, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Additionally, the U.K. Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is investigating Airbus subsidiary GPT concerning a service contract in Saudi Arabia that pre-dated the acquisition by Airbus in 2007.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...