Balfour Beatty hit by £2m fine

A corruption investigation into Britain's biggest construction company today led to Balfour Beatty paying out £2.25 million for obtaining property by unlawful conduct.

In the first payout of its kind under new Serious Fraud Office powers, Balfour today admitted "payment irregularities" during its rebuilding of the lost Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Balfour agreed the settlement, which avoids the case going to court, by admitting "unlawful conduct" over its failure to keep accurate accounting records of payments.

It insisted the irregular payments were not bribes, it had not made a commercial gain from them and it blew the whistle on itself to SFO investigators.

An Olympic Games contractor, Balfour is in the running for work on Crossrail and new nuclear power stations. Today's case concerned the construction of the £220 million Bibliotecha Alexandrina in 1996-2001.