The US issued a formal diplomatic protest to the British government over its decision to drop a fraud investigation into alleged bribery of Saudi officials by arms manufacturer BAE Systems.

The verbal protest was delivered in January by a US embassy official in London to the UK Foreign Office within days of the contentious decision being taken in December. Several governments, including the US, had raised the issue at a meeting of the anti-bribery working group of the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.