Lord Woolf's BAE review imminent

Saudi Arabia is said to have threatened to cancel a Eurofighter order

A review into business practices at BAE Systems is set to be released soon.

The independent study, by Lord Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, is likely to examine how the firm conducts arms deals.

The review began after revelations that it made multi-million pound payments to help win a Saudi Arabia deal - though all parties deny wrongdoing.

The High Court ruled it was unlawful for the Serious Fraud Office to end an investigation into the deal.

The fraud office said the probe would have undermined national security - and has been given permission to appeal the court ruling.

BAE has maintained that it acted lawfully.

'Abject surrender'

Last year, BBC's Panorama programme and the Guardian newspaper disclosed that BAE had made payments running to hundreds of millions of pounds over many years to a leading member of the Saudi royal family, Prince Bandar.

This was part of the Al Yamamah deal to supply £43bn of military equipment, signed back in the 1980s but which ran into the 1990s and involved BAE selling Tornado and Hawk jets, other weapons as well as providing long-running maintenance and training contracts.

Lord Woolf's appointment, which was not a direct response to the Panorama programme, was made because senior BAE executives were said to want independent verification that the company did nothing improper when winning defence contracts.

Prince Bandar has "categorically" denied receiving any improper payments, and BAE said it acted lawfully at all times.

The SFO inquiry is thought to have angered Saudi Arabia, to the point where there was a risk that BAE could lose a contract to sell the new Typhoon fighter to Riyadh if it continued.

Last month, judges said the decision to halt the inquiry represented an "abject surrender" to pressure from a foreign government.

Lord Justice Moses said that the SFO and the government had given in to "blatant threats" that Saudi co-operation in the fight against terror would end unless the probe into corruption was halted.