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submitted 4 months ago by Stamau123@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

Boeing will plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge stemming from two deadly crashes of 737 Max jetliners after the government determined the company violated an agreement that had protected it from prosecution for more than three years, the Justice Department said Sunday night.

Federal prosecutors gave Boeing the choice this week of entering a guilty plea and paying a fine as part of its sentence or facing a trial on the felony criminal charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Prosecutors accused the American aerospace giant of deceiving regulators who approved the airplane and pilot-training requirements for it.

The plea deal, which still must receive the approval of a federal judge to take effect, calls for Boeing to pay an additional $243.6 million fine. That was the same amount it paid under the 2021 settlement that the Justice Department said the company breached. An independent monitor would be named to oversee Boeing’s safety and quality procedures for three years.

The plea deal covers only wrongdoing by Boeing before the crashes, which killed all 346 passengers and crew members aboard two new Max jets. It does not give Boeing immunity for other incidents, including a panel that blew off a Max jetliner during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, a Justice Department official said.

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[-] pwnicholson@lemmy.world 161 points 4 months ago

They did it once, then did it again and not only is it still just a fine, the fine didn't even go up. Given inflation since then, the fine actually went down in real terms.

That'll teach them for sure! /s

[-] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 4 months ago

"You have to put over $400 million of your own money and launder it back around into the safety department of your own company"

That'll teach em.

[-] PumpkinEscobar@lemmy.world 128 points 4 months ago

Boeing made $76B in revenue in 2023. This is slightly more than 1 day's revenue for them ($210M / day) or a bit more than 10 days profit for them ($21M / day). They will keep doing what they're doing, but increase their spending on a PR campaign to improve their public image.

[-] eee@lemm.ee 67 points 4 months ago

They will keep doing what they’re doing

Wrong.

This plea deal helps them quantify the cost of safety lapses, which they didn't have before. Now they know that they'll only get fined a tiny bit, they know that it'll be worth it to cut further corners if that helps them sell maybe 5-10 more planes in total.

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 months ago

Just part of the cost of doing business.

[-] Th4tGuyII@fedia.io 24 points 4 months ago

Exactly. This is like if you charged the average person $1 for causing a major motorway accident.

It's a joke of a fine in the face of Boeing's profits - basically telling them they can get away with severe and wreckless disregard for human life in return for just over a week's profits.

[-] gnutrino@programming.dev 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

If my maths is right that works out to just over 48 minutes of profit per person killed...

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[-] DxK@lemmy.world 89 points 4 months ago

In a major win for the DOJ Boeing has agreed to a plea deal to avoid a criminal trial. As part of the deal Boeing agreed to a slap on the wrist after which they will be legally required to admit to being very naughty before they can resume committing crimes.

[-] Gorely@lemmy.dbzer0.com 53 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

If you were I were to commit criminal fraud, we would go to prison. Why is it that a corporation, which is also considered to be a person, does not need to do something as life-altering?

[-] LwL@lemmy.world 40 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It's insane. Of course we can't just jail a corporation and just shutting them down forcibly would cause more problems than it solves, but really that fine needs to be at least 50 times as high. Probably 100 times. Something that hurts, a lot. Not enough to outright bankrupt them, but enough to do that if it happens again any time soon. Their yearly revenue is 72 billion. This is the equivalent of someone making 50k a year paying a $200 fine for gross negligience that killed people. What the fuck?

[-] ArgentRaven@lemmy.world 39 points 4 months ago

Jail the executives and/or apply the fine to them. They are ultimately the ones that pushed this culture to happen, and as they say "the buck stops here".

Wishful thinking, I know. It would never happen in real life.

[-] Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It may never happen but don't give up on the fact that it could happen. We make up what is the collective consciousness of all civilization. Just as we thought pot would never be legal there was enough people who said it should be. One day you might wake up and the work we did in shaming the owner class, the robber barons, will be a reality.

[-] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

I don't think a fine is an appropriate result. Any amount of money paid to the government is not going to get those people back, it's not going to fix Boeing's workplace culture, it's just going to drive them to cut more corners to recoup the cost of the fine.

Clearly, they can't be trusted to run their own QC operation in an industry where a few missed bolts leads to the violent deaths of hundreds of people. The "punishment" should be the creation of a QC and safety team that is accountable to the American people, which is paid for directly by Boeing. This team is financially liable for Boeing's mistakes, and picks a fee based on how well boeing is passing QCs and inspections. Most importantly, Boeing's C-suite is not allowed to privately communicate with this team.

Accountability should be the "punishment."

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[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Fine the shareholders personally, the major ones. I leave it to the lawyers to figure out how to go about that.

[-] vin@lemmynsfw.com 11 points 4 months ago

I suggest a federal agency become lone shareholder and criminal charges be filed against board members

[-] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 66 points 4 months ago

So a bribe so nobody goes to jail...

[-] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 9 points 4 months ago

Pretty much.

America really loves protecting those upper management from taking responsibility!

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[-] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 62 points 4 months ago

I liked it better when large corps could go dark practically overnight, e.g. Enron. Andersen, et al.

[-] JonEFive@midwest.social 30 points 4 months ago

And then the concept of "too big to fail" was born.

[-] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 35 points 4 months ago

Too big to fail means too big to exist, you're a defacto monopoly and need to be broken apart if you're too big to fail.

[-] And009@reddthat.com 5 points 4 months ago

Does duopoly count, the only competitor is Airbus

[-] maynarkh@feddit.nl 9 points 4 months ago

Being monopolistic does not mean you have no competitors, but that you are big enough to adversely affect the free market so that you can't be competed with.

So yeah, it counts, and so does Apple for example.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago

More specifically, the government got Enron but the PR campaign waged by corporate lobbyists is directly responsible for the milquetoast prosecutions since then. They actually got a majority of Americans to believe the government was at fault for people losing their jobs and pensions. The pensions that were already embezzled. And the jobs that were already getting cut because the embezzling was starting in on the corporation.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 49 points 4 months ago

My god is the DOJ going to pay the bar tab for Boeing's team too?

They killed hundreds of people by lying and then got caught lying some more. Over and over we're told that if there was ever any actual criminality it would pierce the corporate veil. So either that was bullshit or the DOJ is incompetent or unwilling to go after these murderers the same way they do other organized crime.

It's time to make the existence of Corporations a campaign issue. If they aren't doing anything wrong then they don't need the shield right?

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 47 points 4 months ago

What a sick joke our DOJ is.

[-] NutWrench@lemmy.world 43 points 4 months ago

And the mysterious deaths of the whistleblowers? Did they get to plead that away too?

[-] Snapz@lemmy.world 43 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

This is an absolute god damn failure. Merrick Garland is a spineless, neutered, impotent, milquetoast, coward and that's exactly how history should remember him.

[-] MagicShel@programming.dev 8 points 4 months ago

That's exactly what he was hired to be. You don't blame the main course if you don't like what's for dinner.

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 39 points 4 months ago

Well that's fine. It's not as if anyone died.

Oh wait...

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 38 points 4 months ago

Damn, I wish I could commit felony fraud and get off with just a fine.

Although, doesn't the government usually prefer to not work with convicted felons? Does this mean they'll prefer other companies for contracts, etc.?

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

We'd need to actually have an aviation market instead of (checks notes) two corporations.

[-] maynarkh@feddit.nl 5 points 4 months ago

One. Airbus is foreign competition, just like the Chinese company that now is entering the market.

The US govt will not buy Airbus over Boeing, and will not let airlines overwhelmingly switch to it either.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

We don't need Boeing for for passenger jets. We need them for, well let's just roll out the list.

  • AH-64
  • CH-47
  • V-22
  • F-15
  • F-18
  • C-17
  • KC-46
  • T-7

And I'm getting tired of copying things from their Wikipedia. It goes on into drones and missiles too. So this isn't about the foreign competition, it's about keeping a part of our defense industry marginally competitive with Boeing and Lockheed both kicking around.

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[-] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 32 points 4 months ago
[-] cordlesslamp@lemmy.today 13 points 4 months ago

The system is working perfectly as intended.

[-] exanime@lemmy.world 29 points 4 months ago

Pleading to avoid criminal charges regarding cases where people died should not be a thing...

[-] Tronn4@lemmy.world 22 points 4 months ago

Corporations are not people when it's convenient

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[-] halykthered@lemmy.ml 27 points 4 months ago

Are we filing charges against sock puppets named Boeing? Who is the man in charge? Over three hundred people are dead. Those families deserve justice, not whatever this is.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago

In the US the corporation acts as a legal shield, except in criminal cases. The fact that the DOJ hasn't ripped that shield away and stuck a probe up their ass tells you everything you need to know about how true my first sentence is. Despite hearing it ad nauseum every time something like the Ohio train crash happens.

[-] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world 25 points 4 months ago

No more too big to fail companies

[-] cerement@slrpnk.net 17 points 4 months ago

~~flattery~~ defense contracts will get you everywhere!

[-] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago

Saw it coming. This article could almost be a re post

[-] 2484345508@lemy.lol 7 points 4 months ago

Boeing killed John Barnett

[-] j4k3@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

Now what. They going to fake jail like Orange Hitler.

[-] Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

The people who need to be held accountable, won't be. They'll continue to live in lavish luxury without any repercussions.

It's a big club, and you ain't in it.

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this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
363 points (99.5% liked)

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