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Just watched a documentary on Boeing an hour ago. It’s incredible that they avoided criminal prosecution despite two planes crashing, door popping out and then
by Havoc 2y ago
Just watched a documentary on Boeing an hour ago. It’s incredible that they avoided criminal prosecution despite two planes crashing, door popping out and then paperwork somehow going AWOL. Also Boeing knew about wiring issues since 2022 and the FAA only issues an inspection order in ‘24.
Gonna try and avoid Boeings of all types going forward
- mnau 2y agoThey hired the lead prosecutor that cut them a deal. To be precise a Boeing criminal defence firma hired her after she left the Justice department. It's the American way.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- marcusverus 2y ago> Boeing’s lead corporate criminal defense law firm is Kirkland & Ellis. Cox, the lead prosecutor in the Boeing case, left the Justice Department earlier this year. And last month she joined Kirkland & Ellis as a partner in its Dallas office. It looks like the firm bought the prosecutor, resulting in a win for its client. How could this be prevented, though? Politicians can't be trusted with oversight like this--they would use it to punish prosecutors and would inevitably further politicize the Justice Dept. https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/lead-boeing-prosecutor-joins-boeing-corporate-criminal-defense-firm-kirkland-ellis/ https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/lead-boeing-...
- evilos 2y agoCan't a law be passed that states prosecutors legally cannot consult or assist in cases or for defendants they were involved with during their tenure as a prosecutor for X years after they leave their position?
- para_parolu 2y agoThen some friend of Boeing CEO would invest in prosecutor's startup
- marcusverus 2y agoOr firms could trade hires ("if you hire this person, I'll refer a client to you"). Or they could "persuade" a client's legal dept to hire her ("We're looking for a new partner and we like your experience... On a totally unrelated note, I know a talented young woman who's looking for a job...")
- triceratops 2y agoThe allegation is the prosecutor got a cushy gig at the law firm, not that they subsequently worked on the case after switching sides.
- evilos 2y agoAh so the implication is not that the prosecutor gave them inside info on the government's case's weaknesses but the prosecutor intentionally played the case suboptimally in hopes of being paid after the fact? If this was done with prior assurance that sounds already illegal no? If it was done simply on the hopes of securing "payment" afterwards with no prior deal then that seems like a large risk for the prosecutor to take.
- dmix 2y agoPoliticians don't have much incentive to do this since plenty of them get cushy jobs at bigco benefactors of the spending bills they voted on. Trying to target prosecutors would cast a eye on themselves. It's like trying to separate church and state in England back in 1600-1700s.
- lukan 2y ago"Politicians don't have much incentive to do this since plenty of them get cushy jobs at bigco benefactors of the spending bills they voted on." It is the same problem - bribery/corruption but hard to proof and not much interest to investigate.
- markus_zhang 2y agoIf the whole legal system protects and even encourages such actions, maybe...wait an UPS guy is knocking the door, strange I don't remember ordering anything...hold on.
- diggan 2y agoOnce you start thinking of Boeing as a government agency with less oversight that poses as a for-profit corporation, a lot of things start to make more sense. Including what you wrote about.
- aners_xyz 2y agoI’m not really sure this framing makes any sense if I’m being honest.
- diggan 2y agoWhat private corporation could make mistakes where people lose their lives on the same scale while still operating as normal afterwards?
- jfarina 2y agoBoeing. It's literally the post.
- echoangle 2y agoThe question obviously was meant as "except Boeing".
- schmidtleonard 2y agoPeople dying due to profit-motivated corporate negligence and the corporations in question getting a slap on the wrist? Must be a day ending in "y."
- FredPret 2y agoThere must be a billion corporations out there. What % can kill customers on the scale of Boeing and get away with it? A tiny number. And for the ones that can, it’s likely that there are strong ties to the same government that’s supposed to prosecute them. For Boeing, there are significant financial and contractual ties to the US government. Having a steady stream of ultra-reliable government cash surely reminds you of a state department?
- jmyeet 2y agoNot defending Boeing here. They have lost engineering focus as everything has become financialized in the search for ever-higher profits. But there's also a recency bias here, as in fatal defects aren't new. Example: there were several fatal accidents with the 737 rudder in the 1990s [1]. One valid area of criticism is how the FAA has essentially allowed Boeing to self-certify to safety since ~2009 [2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues [2]: https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/boeing-faa-congress-must-stepup/ https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/b...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- zooq_ai 2y agoYou can make a documentary about any person or any company on this planet and make them look evil with the benefit of hindsight.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoYou get a lot of leeway when you are a large defense contractor and one of the last American aviation companies.
- __xor_eax_eax 2y agoSadly, this will kill the US. We have no other aerospace manufacturer at that scale. Unless you're not in the US, you want Boeing to get better, not fail (or root for a competitor, but I see no such thing)
- mensetmanusman 2y agoDidn’t the door of the flight land on the lawn of one of the universe’s lawyers suing them?
- TulliusCicero 2y agoExecutives nearly always avoid jail time despite egregious lawbreaking, because we have a culture of corporate permissiveness in the US (and arguably many other countries as well of course). Only the absolute worst of the worst of the worst will get jail time for doing something illegal in the course of doing their job at the company, if it's something that nominally benefits that company (as opposed to, say, stealing from the company themselves). And even then, probably only some. This creates a perverse incentive to commit crimes as an executive, because the upsides are huge -- big bonuses/promotions/pay raises as a part of cutting costs, even if you had to compromise on safety or otherwise do something illegal -- but the biggest downside is usually only having to resign or get fired. Imagine if the worst result of repeatedly putting someone in the hospital or robbing a bunch of banks with a gun was just losing your job. That's how executive crime works in the US.