737 Max: Accused of defrauding its investors, Boeing goes for checkout again

Boeing will have to check out again because of the 737 Max. After two fatal plane crashes, the plane manufacturer agreed to pay $200 million on Thursday after the U.S. Financial Markets Commission (SEC) accused it of publicly releasing multiple messages confirming that the plane did not pose a risk. The company’s former general manager, Dennis Muilenburg, who was responsible at the time for the news, agreed to pay a $1 million fine for his part. This has been a major problem with the flight software, MCAS, since pilots failed to find a Lion Air 737 Max in October 2018 and a similar Ethiopian Airlines flight in March 2019. The crashes caused 346 deaths and grounded the 737 MAX for twenty months.

The SEC specifically criticizes Boeing for issuing a press release, annotated and approved by Dennis Muilenburg, a month after the Lion Air crash, citing only portions of the Indonesian authorities’ report suggesting that the pilot and poor maintenance were to blame. The document fails to mention an internal assessment that says MCAS poses an “aircraft safety problem” and that Boeing has already begun making changes to address it. Boeing and Dennis Muilenburg “have assured the public, however, that the 737 MAX + is as + safe as any airplane that has ever flown the skies,” the SEC notes in a press release. Six weeks after the Ethiopian Airlines crash, Dennis Muilenburg told analysts and reporters that “there has been no slippage or hiatus in the MCAS certification process.” Documents later showed Boeing already knew information to the contrary, the company noted.

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Two billion has already been paid to the companies

Boeing already admitted in January 2021 that two of its employees had misled a team of the United States Aviation Authority responsible for preparing pilot training for the MCAS software. The aeronautics giant agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion to settle certain lawsuits, including $243.6 million in criminal fines, $1.77 billion in restitution for the 737 MAX and $500 million in restitution to the airlines. victims. The SEC found that Boeing and Dennis Muilenburg violated securities laws by misleading investors. If they agree to pay the fine, the group, like the former manager, neither accepts nor denies the agency’s decisions, the press release noted. “In times of crisis and tragedy, it is critical that publicly traded companies and their executives provide complete, fair and truthful information to the markets. The Boeing Company and its former boss, Dennis Muilenburg, have failed in this most fundamental duty,” SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said in the statement.

The settlement with the SEC is “part of the company’s broader efforts to responsibly resolve outstanding legal issues related to the 737 MAX accidents in a way that best serves the interests of our shareholders, employees and other stakeholders,” a Boeing spokesperson responded. The group, he added, has made “major and profound changes” since 2019 to “ensure security processes and oversight of security matters”. Robert Clifford, a lawyer for the families of victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash, is calling for further investigations against “Muhlenburg or anyone else who urged the government to fly the Boeing 737 Max.”

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