A court battle raging between Italian company Tiber Aviation s.r.l. and Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. turns on whether Tiber was actually intending to ship a helicopter to Iran or whether Bell told that story to a special agent of the Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) in order to secure the government’s help in repossessing the helicopter. The latest chapter in the saga occurred earlier this month when ICE agents formally seized the helicopter in question.

According to a complaint filed by Tiber against Bell in a federal court in Texas, Tiber purchased three helicopters from Mexico-based Helicopteros y Vechiculos Aereas Nacionales (“Helivan”) for $22 million. Two of the helicopters were shipped directly from Mexico to Italy, while the third was sent to the U.S. to be taken apart and shipped to Italy after Tiber discovered that this was a cheaper method of getting the helicopter to Italy. Although Helivan purported to sell the helicopters with clear title, Bell asserts that they were financed under a lease agreement to Helivan and that Bell still had title to the helicopters, including the one still in Texas. According to Tiber, that interest was not properly recorded by Bell.

Tiber alleges that rather than seeking to exercise its claimed interest as owner of the helicopter, Bell took a more novel approach to repossessing the aircraft — namely, that Bell went to the field office of BIS in Dallas and alleged that Tiber was planning to ship the helicopters to Iran. Shortly therafter Bell and a BIS special agent went to the facility of United Rotocraft, where the helicopter was awaiting disassembly, and told United Rotocraft that the helicopter was being seized, whereupon they all got into the helicopter and flew it off to a hangar in Arlington, Texas. For its part, Tiber denies that it intended to ship the helicopter to Iran and, resorting to some colorful language in the complaint, compares Bell to a schoolyard bully stealing Tiber’s lunch money. (Since the helicopter is worth around $7-8 million, that was obviously money for a pretty big lunch.)

Bell, of course, denies in the answer and counterclaim that it filed in the Texas court, that it was trying to steal Tiber’s helicopter or even Tiber’s lunch money claiming, first, that it had validly recorded its interest in the helicopter and therefore still owned it. But Bell also admits that it went to BIS to allege that the helicopter was destined for Iran, although once it spoke with BIS it learned that the helicopter was already subject to an ongoing investigation by BIS. Bell says that it learned that the helicopter was destined for Iran from an unidentifed source that informed Bell that a Helivan mechanic was in Iran providing training and maintenance on the other two helicopters.

Far be it from me to speculate as to who is telling the truth here. The only thing I can say with certainty here is that $8 million dollars would buy several tons of school cafeteria mac and cheese.

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