PARIS, July 30 (Reuters) - Airbus is facing a

criminal investigation in Britain into potential violations of

export control rules involving several of its British entities,

the aerospace group said on Tuesday.

The investigation emerged in footnotes to the company's

half-yearly earnings, which said Airbus was fully cooperating

with the probe by Britain's Revenue and Customs agency (HMRC).

"Airbus is working with all relevant authorities to ensure

full remediation of all identified deficiencies," a spokesperson

said in response to a Reuters query about the filing, adding

that it was not expected to have a material financial impact.

A spokesperson for HMRC declined comment, citing a policy of

never discussing ongoing or specific investigations.

Airbus said the decision to launch the probe followed an

audit carried out by British export control authorities in 2022.

The British probe comes around nine months after the U.S.

State Department formally lifted the threat of charges over

alleged violations of export rules in the United States.

In January 2020, Airbus reached a trio of deferred

prosecution agreements and agreed to pay record fines totalling

3.6 billion euros following broad investigations in Britain,

France and the United States into allegations of corruption.

As part of the settlements, Airbus agreed to pay 9 million

euros and set up a three-year monitoring plan to resolve

findings by the State Department that Airbus had violated U.S.

International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

Airbus also agreed to appoint an export control compliance

officer.

'NO LINK' TO RECENT U.S. CASE

ITAR is the official name for a 40-year-old set of rules

governing the export of defence goods and data perceived to have

implications for U.S. national security.

In 2017, Airbus said it had discovered and reported to U.S.

authorities inaccuracies in past declarations to the State

Department over the sale of goods and services under ITAR.

The ending of the three-year monitoring period was delayed

to October last year after Airbus asked for more time to

complete the process after diverting internal resources to

ensuring it complied with Western sanctions against Russia.

Airbus also warned last year that the factual disclosures in

the State Dept probe could spawn other international

investigations, though a person familiar with the latest British

investigation told Reuters the two cases were not related.

The British criminal probe puts Airbus back in the judicial

spotlight, albeit on what so far appears to be a relatively

limited scale, just as Boeing wrestles with the fallout from

criminal probes into its handling of the safety of the 737 MAX.

The U.S. planemaker initially won a prosecutor settlement

over allegations that it misled U.S. regulators over development

of a software feature linked implicated in two fatal crashes.

But the U.S. Justice Department said in May that Boeing had

breached its obligations in the agreement, and the U.S.

planemaker last week finalised a guilty plea to a criminal fraud

conspiracy charge and agreed to pay at least $243.6 million.