Boeing Charged With 737 MAX Fraud Conspiracy, Will Pay $2.5 Billion

Slap on the wrist if you ask me

Monetary fines are a joke in corporate America, it’s the cost of doing business. I’d like for judges and Gov agencies to hold people knowingly participating in this to be prosecuted in criminal court.

Yes definitely just a slap on the wrist. Only $500M for the families of the people that died? That seems like a low number. Comes out to 1.4M per family but honestly after all they've been thru it should be double that.

Holy S***! The wet noodle slaps Boeing's corporate personhood wrist 12 times. And the penalty will be written off on its liabilities and taxes. Wow! Justice for corporate crime! And the airlines get the bulk of the settlement.

On a serious note, When are the prosecutions of senior Boeing executives going to take place? Perhaps for the new administration? Not!

Where's Luke, who said all the pilots had to do on the two doomed flights was push a button to avoid the crash?

Stockholders will pay it. None of the C level executives will get any fines, pay reduction, or jail. Life goes on.

So nobody goes to prison. This is bullshit.

This is a plea by a corporation, not by individuals. Individual employees would have to be criminally charged to face incarceration; the corporation can't make a plea bargain on their behalf. And one would have to show specific acts/intent to engage in criminal acts. It is also likely the the fine that is being paid to customers includes monies that have either already been promised or are anticipated to be promised. Nothing out of the ordinary there when dealing with a big settlement announcement.

2.5 billion is too little for a company like Boeing. It is pocket change.

Boeing knew they needed to get it over with before the administration changes in the Justice Department.

Criminal charges? Now let’s ban Boeing from future military contract biddings for the time being. We don’t want the great US of A to collab with fraudsters — oh, wait...

Bail 'em out!

How much money did Boeing save by cutting corners? I bet it's a whole lot more than $2.5 billion. If Boeing had to do it again, they will absolutely do the exact same thing over.

Lucky says: "It’s amazing to me that no one is being personally jailed and held responsible here, when you consider that negligence lead to nearly 350 deaths"

Let's just be clear about what's really going on here: They don't have enough evidence to actually bring charges in court and prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, as required. DOJ often brings trumped-up "charges" against corporations, which usually are happy to agree to pay a fine rather than deal with the distraction and public relations debacle of a criminal prosecution. Almost invariably, these corporate crimes couldn't actually be proven in court because usually what the DOJ is "charging" is based on a bunch of people being stupid -- not true criminality. The prosecutors know, though, that the company can't take the risk of actually defending itself because it might collapse while the criminal case is pending. (The most famous example is Arthur Andersen, which was charged criminally. The company collapsed while the case was pending -- but in the end the Supreme Court rejected the charges. So the company was "cleared," but at that point, everyone had left and it was no longer in business.)

Would they really pay $2.5 billion just to avoid the hassle and public relations debacle? Perhaps not, but that's not what they're paying under this deal. The actual fine here is $243 million. The rest of the "penalty" is just counting compensation that Boeing already paid to airline customers and victims, in an effort to create the impression that DOJ is getting a massive penalty. In fact, they're getting just $243 million, which is chump change to Boeing (worth $120 billion as of today's market close). Just grandstanding by prosecutors, as usual. Cases like this are "easy" ways for them to get eye-popping settlement numbers without actually doing much work.

In 2017 Boeing made total sales of 93.4 billion with a profit of 8.2 billion.
So that 2.5 billion fine/payment/compensation is not going to break the bank, by any means.
And no one will go to prison. Clearly there is no justice.

Dumb question.....

This settlement involves Boeing and the US government. Could there be other governments which might impose financial penalties in Boeing as well?

So two pilots did this all by themselves? I wonder if the criminal charges and fines would have been materially different if one or both of the accidents had involved a US airline?

Does this have to be approved by a Judge? If so they may have views on this. Of can a victim of the crashes or an airline sue so a judge can review it.

I see Congress taking an interest as well. Not to stop the settlement but to ask questions as to how the DoJ calculated the actual fine element and the airline and victims compensation.

Is it possible for the new administration to reopen this up? They may not change the decision but they may want to review it.

This shows what a sick and warped legal system we have in the USA. People at Boeing responsible for mass homicide are let off free and easy with golden parachutes, all at the expense of their shareholders. Anyone else, without big time lawyers and shareholders to loot, who killed 377 humans through malign behavior would probably be sitting in SuperMax forever.

Someone in the exec team instructed this behaviour from the test pilots in order for the corporation make billions and they should be held accountable

Thoroughly disgusting that no one at CEO level or board of Directors is heading for jail time.
After all, these people are copping huge bonuses when everything goes well, so why shouldn’t they should suffer the pain of loss that they knowingly caused the victims families by allowing this known deception.

Criminal Accountability / Industrial Manslaughter laws should be applied.