Ultra Electronics Holdings, a British defence electronics firm, was bidding to get a contract to provide key infrastructure to the Algerian government Ministry of Post and Communications. The project was called the PKI Project. The company’s preferred route: bribery of government officials through middlemen.
The Statement of Facts in The Serious Fraud Office’s Deferred Prosecution Agreement with Ultra Electronics, published on 1 May 2026, gives an extraordinary insight into the company’s lack of scruple, in using fixers and middle men and intermediaries, both companies and individuals. The British parent company and the fixer and his company were in cahoots.
Colourful exchanges between the British company’s executive and the fixer Adel Khalef show the fixer trying to resist the British firm’s efforts to reduce his and his partners’ ‘cut’, of the order of $4m. He tells the British executive,
“There is no freaking budget and no freaking winning price. He [sic] winning is me and my people and my influence that brought you the partner…”
The fixer tells the British executive, “There is NO budget limit and you are guaranteed to win. [Ahmed] Berbar obeys the minister. [T]He minister obeys the prime minister. The prime minister obeys my boss”.
The senior British executive described only as SE1 [Senior executive 1, replied that they would try to obtain agreement to pay the intermediaries a $4 million commission.
The fixer was a consultant involved with Algérie Advice Corporation incorporated in Algeria. He was aided by the fixer’s business partner Edwin ‘Ted’ Roberts a British Chartered Accountant and Director of Algerie Advice Limited, a UK company.
The fixer’s message continued, “Ahmed Berber himself that ducking donkey is getting 100 000 from Ted”; “4m are all gone to my boss. Am getting 400 000 not a penny more…”; and “…There is NO budget limit and you are guaranteed to win. Berbar obeys the minister. [T]He minister obeys the prime minister. The prime minister obeys my boss”.
In return for providing the British company with an advance copy of the Request for Proposal, ( a key document in the bid process) he asked the senior executive to provide him with an iPhone.
The fixer says to the British company executive, “My partner colleague says that this guy his [sic] knows at the telecom ministry is kind and amazing. He’s gotten us the RFP [Request for Proposal] attached…He’s asking me for a telephone from Apple to give him as a thank you gift. Can you do it?… Please send it by DHL to thank this man at the ministry. My colleague tells me we will find him later on our side to help while we participate with ultra. He is the commission member of the decision board…”.
The executive thanked him and forwarded the RFP to his colleagues at Ultra. It appears that the executive had forgotten about the request to supply the iPhone, and a few days later the fixer reminded the executive to purchase the mobile phone, adding “what he did for you is an exceptional favour against the law…”
The fixer sent a message to the executive which stated, “…we have agreed to meet Ahmed Berbar (iPhone guy) who as you know is the ministry PKI project CEO. Berbar is super extremely close to Ted (Ted Roberts, the British chartered accountant) and they agreed to meet at a secret moment at the hotel in order to discuss Ahmed Berbar’s cut and commission. (I will pay him myself)…”
The offers of bribes and payments failed to influence the Algerian authorities who refused Ultra Electronics’s bid. The damage to the British defence company ‘s business practices had been done. Ultra Electronics (a British electronics company acquired by Cobham in July 2022, and itself owned by Advent the private equity firm) agreed to pay £10m plus costs of £4m to the SFO, according to the DPA.