29 ms·
Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes
- buildbot 2y ago"The guilty plea would brand the planemaker a felon and could complicate its ability to sell products to the U.S. government. About 32% of Boeing’s nearly $78 billion in revenue last year came from its defense, space and security unit." Well that's a fun little fact
- labster 2y agoI’m sure we can come up with national security reasons to hire convicted felons with their own lobbyists and captured administrators.
- KingOfCoders 2y agoThe convicted felon in the White House next year will make sure his fellow felons get what they want.
- metadat 2y agoLet's hope not.
- justinclift 2y agoIf such a convicted felon were to pardon themselves, would they be a convicted felon any more?
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y agoThe president can only pardon federal crimes.
- manquer 2y agoI don’t think he needs to. they will appeal based on the insanely broad immunity ruling and get the conviction overturned on procedural loophole created by the ruling - no evidence from his presidency even for unofficial acts and justice department will not retry a sitting president. He is likely to get the convictions even in the caroll defamation case for the same reason. Only the fraudulent valuation case is likely survive this Supreme Court ruling.
- mminer237 2y agoHis conviction was based on criminal acts entirely when he was not president.
- manquer 2y agoNo this is a common misconception. He was convicted for falsifying business records nothing else. All the records that were fraudulently submitted were starting Jan 2017. The hush money payment wasn't illegal, hiding it was. It rose to a felony instead of misdemeanor because it was done in service another crime which is campaign finance violation, the other crime need not be proven and he was not charged with that. All they got him for paying cohen illegally. Also there was some evidence introduced from his time as president , he would argue that evidence is now inadmissible and in a favourable court they will declare mistrial and ask the lower court to do it again. If he wins again the prosecution will have to pause and he gets the delay he wants.
- razakel 2y agoYes. Pardons are clemency - they don't overturn the conviction, it just means the person doesn't receive any punishment.
- justinclift 2y agoInteresting. Would such a person be able to change the rules so presidential pardons entirely void whatever they're pardoning?
- razakel 2y agoThe president has the power to pardon; he does not have the power to overturn a conviction. That would require a constitutional amendment. The British parliament has recently done exactly that in the wake of the Horizon scandal - the convictions have been deleted and considered to have never happened.
- justinclift 2y agoThanks. Am just trying to think through how a potential dodgy president could manage to get themselves cleared of things like that. ;)
- mfritsche 2y agoWell yeah. Don't wait for Boeing supply to be replaced by AliExpress orders.
- monero-xmr 2y agoBanks are declared “too big to fail”. Banks! How can a bank be so important, and ostensibly private, that it can’t fail and let its shareholders take their licks? There is no world - none - literally no possible universe - that Boeing cannot sell to the government, or that it fails, or that its planes get grounded indefinitely, or anything even remotely close to this outcome. There are 2 plane makers of appreciable size on earth, Boeing and Airbus. They are essentially government owned enterprises. Boeing has made a strategic decision and nothing of consequence whatsoever will come of this. Maybe a few people go to jail for a few months. That’s literally it
- mulmen 2y agoBanks are not declared too big to fail. They are sometimes described that way. But banks fail all the time. It’s why the FDIC exists. Boeing and the US government have a long and intimate relationship but it is mutual. Boeing was fully vertically integrated until it was favorable to encourage competition in the aviation industry and the US government broke the company up. Boeing is not untouchable.
- lordnacho 2y agoThink he means certain banks. Think JP Morgan, Citi, that kind of bank, rather than banks as a whole.
- chaostheory 2y agoYou’re describing a GSIB. There are only 4-6 banks in the US that’s considered a GSIB
- dabraham1248 2y ago8 (1). And I think that, in this context, those 8 plus the 22 US D-SIBs (2) means that there's 30. FWIW, I _think_ I'm not just pedantically correcting a particular number. I think I'm asserting that keeping track of n organizations is roughly O(n^2), so it's not 4 times as much work to keep track of them all, but more like 56 times as much work. I think that's a real difference that requires a different approach. I get that _you're_ not saying anything re: approach, just terminology. But I think the number matters to this subthread. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systemically_important_banks#List_of_Global_Systemically_Important_Banks_(G-SIBs) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systemically_important... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systemically_important_banks#List_of_Domestic_Systemically_Important_Banks_(D-SIBs) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systemically_important...
- a012 2y agoSo Boeing is a felon, but at the same time nobody is going to jail.
- everyone 2y agoThat's the purpose of creating a corporation.
- potsandpans 2y agoTo commit criminal fraud with impunity?
- immibis 2y agoKind of, yes. The legal purpose of a corporate structure is that the corporation is a liability shield for the people in it.
- mminer237 2y agoIt's to provide limited financial liability for the shareholders; the actual employees don't get any. And it has nothing to do with criminal liability.
- philipov 2y agoShareholders have limited liability. Management does not.
- surfingdino 2y agoManagement evolved language of avoiding responsibility. For example, instead of saying "use cheaper parts" they'll say "we need to focus on better use of our financial resources for increasing shareholder value". No court can pin them down for telling designers to use cheap parts, but the designers get the message. And if the designers don't get it, lower management will tell them in plain language. That shift the blame onto lower ranks while the top management is laughing all the way to the bank and move on to another high-paying job.
- hdesh 2y agoI wonder if the outcome would have been any different if the 737 MAX crashes had happened on the American soil and involved loss of American lives.
- fuzztester 2y agoNone did?
- jajko 2y agoAbsolutely 0 doubt about that. Just look how at the beginning they tried to blame it all on incompetent african pilots. Human lives have wildly different values to us based on race, ethnicity, religion, remoteness etc., I don't like it but this is still very much part of human nature. How much do you care if plane with 150 civilians falls down in remote russia or china and everybody burns to charcoal? Now compare it to same number of your neighbors or even just unknown people from your own town meeting the same fate.
- kortilla 2y agoIt had nothing to do with racism against the victims. It’s quite literally that the level of rigor to be a pilot in Africa is not the same as what the FAA requires. Airlines very frequently get banned from US airspace because their procedures do not meet the strict safety bar set by the FAA. So it’s very reasonable to assume that what was identified as a training gap on the MCAS operations was due to sloppy regional airline training procedures. So it’s true that it would have been taken more seriously in the US, but it’s because the FAA and NTSB set the bar for aviation safety and crash investigation rigor world wide.
- Hikikomori 2y agoWhy was this famous safety bar not looking at Boeing anymore?
- mynameisvlad 2y agoThe NTSB and FAA were both sent to help with the investigation (as they would for any US airplane manufacturer), so I’m not sure how them “[setting] the bar for aviation safety and crash investigation” comes into play here.
- puzzledobserver 2y agoWhat does it mean for a corporation to plead guilty? Does it mean that there is evidence to establish a crime beyond reasonable doubt, but there is insufficient evidence to implicate any employees in particular?
- slim 2y agoI don't think if the company is found guilty it means people won't get prosecuted. I would think the contrary is true. IANAL
- fuzzfactor 2y ago>What does it mean for a corporation to plead guilty? Same thing as for any other felon. If they hadn't taken the plea, far worse things could have come to light that were even more egregious offenses.
- thangalin 2y ago"Whatever the reasons (market pressures, rushing processes, inadequate certifications, fear of being fired, or poor project management), Leveson’s insights are being ignored. For example, after the first fatal Boeing 737 Max flight, why was the entire fleet not grounded indefinitely? Or not grounded after an Indonesian safety committee report uncovered multiple failures? Or not grounded when an off-duty pilot helped avert a crash? What analysis procedures failed to prevent the second fatal Boeing 737 Max flight?" https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/06/06/web-of-knowledge/ https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/06/06/web-of-knowledge/ June 6, 2019
- iSnow 2y agoRacism. If the first fatal flight had happened to an US or European airline somewhere over US or European territory, the fleet would have been grounded for an investigation.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- coretx 2y agoPlea deals rob victims from the truth they need for closure and recovery. On top of that, plea deals also undermine public trust in the rule of law. I wonder how "happy" the Judge is for being forced to give it credibility...
- constantcrying 2y agoThe criminal justice system doesn't exist to emotionally satisfy the victims.
- Etheryte 2y agoThat depends on how you look at it, it would be pretty straightforward to take the philosophical stance that that's all that it exists for. Mostly it's just a matter of framing.
- coretx 2y agoLaw/legal philosophy indeed is different everywhere... Where i'm at, I was always told that the primary purpose of the process is to deter and prevent the crime from ever happening again. In this particular Boeing case, I bet my ass that the corporate world is taking notes as the plea deal is a sweet deal; thus a incentive is provided to do the crime. It would be funny if the victims of the next Boeing sue over inciting the crime they will be a victim of.
- nicce 2y agoIt exist to prevent crimes happening. Looking at that $240M fine, seems like it will change nothing. They probably made more money by not being so strict on safety. These fines are too low. Company should go close to bankruptcy if they do something serious.
- ironmagma 2y agoWell, it sure as heck doesn’t exist to uncover the truth, so what does it do?
- omerhac 2y ago"We plead guilty for our poor test coverage"
- carlmr 2y agoIt's more than test coverage though. Their spec had the same glaring error. It's a design, management agreement, spec, review failure. The tester could have said something because they realized the design is bullshit, but by that time no competent testers hired by Boeing any more, it was all outsourced to the cheapest bidder.
- rafaelgoncalves 2y agoexactly, and what good "test coverage" would do if the design is flawed?
- supernova87a 2y agoOur governmental methods of punishment for corporations strike me as lacking. This seems similar to Wells Fargo, where ok, the company was fined, sued, made to pay restitution (somewhat) to victims. But underlying it all, the culture and incentives at the company that produced the situation didn't get fundamentally changed. Which often perpetuates across specific leaders, boards, and is a part of what a company is -- and doesn't just get replaced by removing one or two people. What does it take? You have to dismantle a company before it changes these kinds of deep-rooted issues? Or can a government penalty call for that? That is hard to achieve. Who's going to change the evaluation procedures that HR has in place to measure what rating or bonus you get this year? That seems to me as important as who is CEO. None of the penalties courts mete out (short of dissolution/fined into bankruptcy) seem to be able to achieve this level of change needed.
- BiteCode_dev 2y agoCompanies are persons, except they are not. They cannot die. They cannot go to prison. This concept of a moral person is a totally unfair advantage that they exploit again and again.
- quonn 2y agoI hear this claim a lot but is it really true? Corporations in most countries are „legal persons“ in the sense that they can act like a person. This is what limited liability is all about. In fact the very name „incorporation“ comes from giving a sort of „body“ to an entity that otherwise doesn‘t have one in order to shield the owners from liability as it should be. I do not think that a corporation is considered to be a person beyond that. It‘s merely a way to establish limited liability for shareholders which requires a mechanism for the corporation to sign contracts without an owner signing on it‘s behalf.
- BiteCode_dev 2y agoThey can make investments, sue, go bankrupt, have bank accounts, like a person, in their own name instead of the owner.
- justinclift 2y agoSeems an extremely soft ball approach: • Under the deal, Boeing agreed to pay a $243.6 million fine and for an third-party monitor to be installed to monitor the company’s compliance. ~$240M seems pretty low for an industry where billions are commonly thrown about. • The deal spares Boeing from a trial just as the planemaker is trying to turn a corner in its safety and manufacturing crises. Sparing them from a trial means no further discovery/uncovering of other illegal shit they've been up to meanwhile?
- dvhh 2y agoI think someone else was fined 355~450 millions for fraud recently
- cootsnuck 2y agoIf you scam the powers that be out of some real money (or just slightly expose their financial incompetence) that's when they suddenly know how how to hold individuals responsible. Pharma bro, Elizabeth Holmes, Delvey, SBF, etc. The system views individual lives as less important than the confidence / stability / illusion of power of the holy market and those it is meant to benefit.
- BartjeD 2y agoFor spilling a hot coffee cup you get $ 2.7 million worth of punitive damages. But for killing more than 200 people and trying to hide the evidence, we'll charge you 200 million and call it a day. That's less per person than the price of a hot-coffee spill.
- chakintosh 2y ago> For spilling a hot coffee cup you get $ 2.7 million worth of punitive damages. What's the context here?
- COGlory 2y agoNot OP, but I'm guessing this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Rest...
- b3lvedere 2y ago"Boeing also agreed for the board of directors to meet with crash victims’ family members, under the agreement." So, what does this mean exactly?
- anonzzzies 2y agoAnd is that CEO who got that crazy $$ package part of this delegation?
- gomijacogeo 2y agoA truly fitting punishment would be that Boeing is prohibited from piggybacking certification of any further 737 variants.
- fransje26 2y agoNot really, unfortunately. It's the 4th generation of 737, with 4 layers of control systems coexisting (and sometimes working against each other). Slapping a 5th layer on top of the current crud for a new version is simply not realistic. Removing layers to allow for a new version is also not realistic, as the certification requirements would be pretty close to those of a clean-sheet aircraft. So in conclusion, Boeing got away with certifying an aircraft that should never have been certified in the first place, and will reap the financial benefits of it. Minus some minor compensation to airlines and victims.
- keiferski 2y agoThe people saying “send the CEO to jail” or “make the board liable” are vastly oversimplifying the complexity of the issue here, which is about how to enforce regulations and standards without torpedoing your economy. One of the single most important reasons why the US has such a successful business culture is because of its approach to liability - virtually all business debt can be erased in a bankruptcy, and the entrepreneur is not personally responsible. This is not the case in many other developed countries, with one consequence being that the entrepreneurial culture there is nowhere near as developed as in the US. https://swz.it/europes-failure-to-deal-with-failure/ https://swz.it/europes-failure-to-deal-with-failure/ And so you really don’t want to set up a situation where the operators of a company are by-default responsible for anything that their company does. Of course, that has limits and people can still be individually charged for crimes, but the point here is that this is not a by-default thing. This problem is magnified by a thousand with a company like Boeing that is so intertwined with the government and not easily replaceable. It seems to me that the solution to this kind of issue might come from studying successful occupations done by the US - post-WW2 Japan is the one that comes to mind. The Allies (mainly the Americans) managed to defeat an enemy state, punish some (but not all) of the people it deemed to have done wrong, and then set up systems which turned out to be largely effective at putting the country on a good path. Fixing an entity like Boeing seems similar in nature, if much smaller than an actual country.
- computerex 2y agoMaybe something needs to change because America's "strong business culture" seems to only benefit the presently wealthy get wealthier at the expense of the working class.
- keiferski 2y agoI don’t think that is contradictory with what I wrote. It is possible (and I think the actual case) that all American classes benefit from the strong American economy compared to say, Europe, while intra-economically inequality grows.
- BartjeD 2y ago
- sva_ 2y ago> Boeing also agreed for the board of directors to meet with crash victims’ family members, under the agreement. Is this a normal thing? Seems odd.
- heymijo 2y agoRegarding the "Can/should a CEO or officer be held liable?" dialogue, there is already at least one precedent. The 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act: > The law states that if top corporate executives knowingly sign off on a false financial report, they’re subject to a prison term of up to 10 years and a fine of up to $1 million, with penalties escalating to 20 years and $5 million if their misconduct is willful. [0] Now, would it work? The linked article details reasons that make it challenging in the SOX context. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS3512973425/ https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS3512973425/
- georgeplusplus 2y agoI believe how they try RICO cases would be a useful precedent.
- Joel_Mckay 2y agoActually in most places, technically as president/CEO of a firm you are already liable for any criminal conduct by your firm/employees-on-the-job. The corporate lawyers should have clearly warned them about this already. Additionally, any criminal lawyer should have warned Boeing people it is often around a 10 year jail term for criminal negligence. Unless the president/CEO can prove they enforced policy to mitigate the issues, than the board may still be in real trouble internationally. Their best bet is to delay long enough that the general public loses interest in the case. Have a great day, and remember free parachutes is not a real solution... =3
- semiquaver 2y ago> technically as president/CEO of a firm you are already liable for any criminal conduct by your firm/employees-on-the-job. Citation needed. Limited liability is at the foundation of the very concept of incorporation.
- brianwawok 2y agoIsn’t LL about protecting your assets not you from jail time? I can’t start a LLC, have the LLC pay someone to kill you, and be scott free. “Sorry you can’t go after me, go after this shell company and try to put it in jail ha ha”
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bradley13 2y agoIndividuals need to be held accountable. Having the company plead guilty helps literally no one. Who were the relevant board members? The CEO? The COO. These people need to be charged.
- jpgvm 2y agoYeah but that isn't how the West works. Remember capital is always blameless, individuals that manage capital even more so. Thoughts and prayers, an inconsequential fine and back to business as usual. Instead we could be like China and actually punish people responsible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal#Arrests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal#Arre... > The Intermediate People's Court in Shijiazhuang sentenced Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping to death, and Tian Wenhua to life in prison, on 22 January 2009. > Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping were executed on 24 November 2009. A much more vile crime but accountability nonetheless. (you can argue about the morality of capital punishment.. but these guys poisoned babies)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- paulnpace 2y agoI tend to think that a more just system would transfer ownership of criminal organizations to victims, which would also supersede all outstanding financial liabilities. Especially this last point would destroy credit options for companies suspected of criminal activity as the larger creditors will hire private investigators.
- taspeotis 2y agoBut then the shareholders wouldn't own the company anymore, so they'd be victims of the crime too, and get ownership transferred straight back to them.
- paulnpace 2y agoI think you pretty much have to make that argument work for all cases of restitution (you can't), because at the base of the claim is that the previous owners are minimally negligent, thus should not own the property.
- booleandilemma 2y agoAnd which Boeing leaders will get 30 years in prison? Who will lose their riches? Who will resign in shame and vow to never take a leadership position again? Oh? Nobody? Um, ok. Justice is served, I guess?
- jgalt212 2y agoIf you think humans (not companies) commit crimes, I'd suggest emailing the DOJ, and letting them hear it. https://www.justice.gov/doj/webform/your-message-department-justice https://www.justice.gov/doj/webform/your-message-department-...
- georgeplusplus 2y agoYou need to actually prove the board and directors contributed to the criminal act to go after them or created the environment that enabled the lower level employees to act. Which I think they would attest to. Unfortunately, You can't just blanket make CEOw responsible for every action of their employees. That would be insane. Think of it like charging the top brass in the mafia, RICOs are hard to prove because getting the guy at the top is difficult.
- deeth_starr_v 2y agoFrom the article: Paul Cassell, a lawyer for victims’ family members, said he plans to ask the federal judge on the case to reject the deal and “simply set the matter for a public trial, so that all the facts surrounding the case will be aired in a fair and open forum before a jury.” Hard to disagree
- credit_guy 2y ago> Hard to disagree But hard to agree too. How exactly can you prevent someone from pleading guilty?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- 5636588 2y agoJudge needs to approve a plea deal. See Hunter's Biden case.
- philwelch 2y ago[flagged]
- dboreham 2y ago> vast category of other crimes he may have committed Which curiously have never been charged nor manifested in any form besides conspiracy theory disinformation.
- philwelch 2y agoThe prosecutors who would have been filing those charges were instead offering to grant immunity from prosecution for them in exchange for a sweetheart plea deal.
- skissane 2y agoThe judge is allowed to reject the plea deal. At which point the defendant can either withdraw their guilty plea and try their luck with a jury - or maintain it and accept whatever sentence the judge wants to impose-which could potentially be a lot harsher than what was agreed in the plea deal. Unlikely relevant to this case, but judges are legally required to reject guilty pleas if they conclude that the defendant is being coerced, doesn’t understand what they are pleading to and the likely consequences of their plea, lacks competence to plea (due to severe mental illness/etc), or that the plea lacks a “factual basis” (e.g. if the conduct alleged by the prosecution and admitted by the defendant fails to legally constitute the elements of the crime; or if the judge has good reason to believe that the conduct in question never actually happened despite both prosecution and defence agreeing that it did) On the last point-the prosecution is allowed to offer the defendant a plea deal for a lesser included offense, but not an unrelated crime that doesn’t correspond with what they are accused of doing-e.g. you can plead drug charges down to lesser drug charges, but you can’t plead drug charges down to possession of stolen goods if there is no evidence anything was actually stolen-in such a scenario the judge is supposed to reject the guilty plea
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoPublic sentiment is very much against Boeing right now, especially their current executives, oddly enough (since the previous ones were overseeing things when MCAS was created). But are there arguments for the other side on any of these incidents, and have they been explored completely? For example… Is Boeing really at fault for the MCAS related crashes? Both happened at airlines from the developing world, where the pilot requirements (for hours of experience) is a lot lower than for airlines from the developed world. I recall reading that pilots from airlines in the US had also encountered MCAS in real flights but knew how to deal with the condition just using their basic piloting knowledge, by lowering flaps or turning the stabilizer trim off. MCAS activation is obvious because the trim wheels in the cockpit spin with its activation - so a pilot who doesn’t want trim can just flip the switch for them. Another possibility: is regulation at fault? Recertification is expensive, and the associated training costs are expensive. I believe it caused Boeing to not seek to classify the 737 Max as a new aircraft and downplay changes like MCAS. Could an easier certification process have caused Boeing to be more transparent about changes with this plane? MCAS itself activates only at high angles of attack and was put in to meet some of the standards of certification, not because there was a “real” problem, by my understanding. It had to do with the new engines’ cover, which does help with fuel efficiency, but changes the plane’s aerodynamics and so Boeing compensated using this system to automatically trim. Could different standards have caused Boeing to not create this system? Are unions at fault? Boeing has immense cost pressures from all sides, and I’ve heard many stories of inefficiency, avoidable costs, and painful politics at their plants due to union rules. These pressures indirectly may cause the company to cut corners elsewhere. I would be curious what HN thinks of these possibilities. There are probably other such theories as well. I’m not saying Boeing did nothing wrong, but that the public and media rarely gets complex stories right. It’s easier to latch onto simpler or more emotional explanations. But what’s actually true and how do you hand out blame?
- smolder 2y agoI don't think any of your arguments are left unexplored. They are inadequate to absolve Boeing of wrongdoing. The idea about unions sharing some blame is especially absurd and the suggestion of it makes your post very difficult to take seriously. Even if unions caused Boeing to become unprofitable, they are blameless in the decisions that led to the crashes.
- dbg31415 2y agoBoeing agreed to pay a fine that's proportionally less than what I'd get if I didn't pay for my own health insurance. Cool. Cool cool cool.
- cooper_ganglia 2y agoBoeing made planes, and then later got into rockets... SpaceX makes rockets, I wonder if they should get into planes? So long as you make a plane where the door doesn't fly off midair, it seems like a good way to print money and bring some manufacturing jobs back to the USA!
- tpl 2y agoNot enough. Boeing getting off easy once again, not enough sting to produce a change in behavior. Why executives are not held accountable is confusing to me.
- cloudhead 2y agoSo are people going to jail?
- abeppu 2y ago> If the deal is accepted, it could complicate Boeing’s ability to sell products to the U.S. government as a felon, though the company could seek waivers. About 32% of Boeing’s nearly $78 billion in revenue last year came from its defense, space and security unit. My understanding is that getting security clearance involves a bunch of checks and statements about your character, and having a federal felony conviction on one's record would be a hard blocker. Absolutely, I think that the real punishment, beyond the $245M fine, ought to be losing its many many billions of DoD contracts. After all, once a firm has demonstrated this kind of behavior, how on earth should we trust it with not only taxpayer dollars but the lives of servicemen/women and critical military resources?
- hdhshdhshdjd 2y agoDoD will continue to do business with Boeing because there aren’t enough options because we consolidated everything into a handful of mega corps and gutted competition in defense like we have across the entire economy. This “punishment” is a joke, these people are mass killers they should be in jail.
- abeppu 2y agoAlso in the "corporations as people" x "criminal justice system" vein, I would be in favor of moving towards a standard where, if a person convicted of the same crime would receive a prison sentence, a company should be forced to cease operations for an equivalent period, and put all its assets into frozen fund which can only be used to pay out debts/obligations, and which earns no interest.
- sureIy 2y agoAs bad as this is, nobody wants an Airbus monopoly, so let’s hope that individuals are arrested and Boeing continues to exists instead.
- abeppu 2y agoI think the DoD should make clear that the funds previously marked for Boeing would be open for new firms even if staffed by former Boeing employees -- provided diligence checks find no involvement by those parties in the current fraud case. Boeing, if it had no prospects of continued DoD contracts, would naturally want to offload teams and facilities dedicated to that work. If this situation was handled right, it could spark the creation of multiple new American firms with the means and know-how to deliver the various products and services that Boeing formerly provided, while simultaneously delivering a very clear message to shareholders and C-suite officers that this sort of conduct will not make them rich.
- lolinder 2y agoCriminal charges against the company aside, aren't there licensed engineers inside of Boeing who signed off on all of this? Where are they in this discussion? Isn't the whole premise of having a licensed engineering discipline that the buck stops with you and you lose your license if you let something like this happen? If we don't revoke licenses and permanently end careers over something like the MAX crashes, the incentives of engineers require them to say yes to the company at all costs, because it's not worth their job to say no. The consequences of saying yes to a bad plan have to be worse than being fired.
- P_I_Staker 2y ago> the incentives of engineers require them to say yes to the company at all costs, because it's not worth their job to say no. The consequences of saying yes to a bad plan have to be worse than being fired. This is true, and from what I understand can be partially true in medicine.
- souterrain 2y agoWould a criminal fraud charge result in federal debarment? If not, why not?
- ungreased0675 2y agoIt wasn’t the company that did fraud, individuals employed by Boeing did. Is it normal for the company to take the charge? How can “Boeing” plead guilty to anything?
- can16358p 2y agoThe criminal liability should be directly on the persons responsible who ignored safety warnings knowingly. If someone responsible for this doesn't go to jail, it's just a matter of time that a similar thing will happen again, given the company culture.
- ljsprague 2y agoAlex Jones has to pay more.
- octacat 2y ago245M fine? so the price of two planes? Nice, it would really prevent the malicious behaviour in the future.
- thumbsup-_- 2y agoIt's a slap on the wrist. No one goes to jail. Just pay money and move on. Boeing knows that if this goes to trial, the discovery material will be extremely incriminating to their brand. Instead, just pay money and move on. I wonder if a plea deal like this would have ever reached if american lives were lost in two crashes as a direct cause of a company's negligence.
- raymond_goo 2y agoFor cheating on car engine emissions, managers of VW had to go to jail. Oliver Schmidt received 4 years. James Liang got 40 months. Rupert Stadler served a couple of months. They went to jail for cheating on engine emissions. Boeing's actions resulted in the deaths of people on two planes. Who will be personally accountable?
- EchoReflection 2y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20240708071145/https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/08/boeing-to-plead-guilty-to-criminal-fraud-charge-stemming-from-737-max-crashes.html# https://web.archive.org/web/20240708071145/https://www.cnbc....
- smsm42 2y agoSo, they plead guilty to criminal fraud that got people killed, and nobody goes to jail ever? And they pay the fine of 0.4% of their annual revenue? That's not even a slap on the wrist, that's more like hand-kissing. "Soft" doesn't even begin to describe it.