BAE board challenged
Symon Hill attended the BAE Systems AGM
What happens when the arms industry comes face to face with its critics? There is one day every year when the representatives of a top arms manufacturer are legally obliged to listen to opponents facing them in the same room: the annual general meeting (AGM) of multinational arms firm BAE Systems.
The event has become an occasion dreaded by the company’s board. In recent years it has been used by critics and activists as an opportunity to hold BAE to account.
Hundreds of shareholders packed into the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London on 4 May. They faced a stage on which the thirteen members of BAE’s board looked down from behind a long table.
The AGM is open to all shareholders, who are not only entitled to attend but also to ask questions. BAE made use of Powerpoint presentations and glossy brochures, but supporters of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), having bought single shares in the company, were once again able to dominate the meeting. The law requires a firm such as BAE to hold an AGM and answer shareholders’ questions.
It is sometimes joked that the AGM is not really a BAE event, but a CAAT event at which BAE gets to choose the date and the venue.
BAE’s chairman, Dick Olver, began the meeting by describing a company a world away from the popular image of BAE. He spoke of the career opportunities BAE provides and its contribution to the UK economy. ‘BAE is committed to being a world leader in responsible behaviour,’ he insisted.
The themes changed abruptly once the meeting opened for questions, around three-quarters of which were asked by ‘activist shareholders’. The board was challenged about the Saudi forces who recently entered Bahrain to help its government to suppress peaceful protests. They used armoured vehicles made by BAE in Newcastle.
Dick Olver described BAE as a ‘force for progress’ in the Middle East. CAAT’s Anne-Marie O’Reilly asked him how he felt when watching footage of the Bahraini protests, but he said he would not ‘comment on the use’ of BAE’s products. When she attempted to put the question to the rest of the board, a visibly rattled Dick Olver snapped: ‘I will decide who answers the questions.’
The formal structure of the AGM broke down as the tempers of both board and activists began to fray. The chief executive, Ian King, defended his recent trip to the Middle East with the prime minister (see ‘David Cameron defends arms sales’, 4 March). He insisted: ‘every country has the right to defend itself’. There were shouts of ‘against its own people?’
BAE’s economic claims were challenged by activists pointing out that the arms industry receives well over half a billion pounds per year in subsidies. There was a string of questions about bribery, fuelled by the remarks of High Court judge David Bean, who said in court, in December, that BAE had benefitted from corrupt payments (see ‘BAE plea bargain gets unbargained for results’, 7 January).
Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of the AGM came after it had formally closed, when shareholders were invited to a free buffet lunch. The ‘genuine’ shareholders tend to avoid the activists, although this year a few engaged in polite conversation. One shareholder approached the campaigners to accuse them of being ‘irritating’ and turning the AGM into a ‘pantomime’.
The unique nature of the AGM is demonstrated by arms trade researcher Barnaby Pace, who for a fourth year running used his question to challenge Dick Olver to a public debate. In the eyes of many, the chairman’s consistent refusal suggests that he finds his company’s annual humiliation in the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre to be quite public enough.
