The U.S Department of Justice announced that Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to single charge of conspiracy to defraud the FAA about its 737 Max 8’s development. This agreement resulted from two crashes of the aerospace’s 737 Max jetliners that occurred in 2018 and 2019 and resulted in the death of 346 people. Boeing will pay $243 million in fines to the DoJ and will invest an additional $455 million in enhancing its compliance and safety programs.
In 2021, Boeing agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) which required the company to pay around $244 million in criminal penalties, $1.77 billion in compensation to its airline customer and $500 million to establish a crash victims’ beneficiary fund to compensate the families of those who were killed in the 2018 and 2019 crashes.
In the agreement, Boeing took responsibility for hiding vital information regarding the condition of the 737 Max jets. Boeing specifically held itself accountable for its failure to provide information regarding features that affected the plane’s flight control system. Since then, investigators have determined that the system consisted of faulty sensor readings that could automatically push the plane to nosedive.
DoJ Determines that Boeing Failed to Meet the DPA Conditions
Inherent in a DPA is the government’s agreement to bring charges but not proceed with them while the company being “charged” agrees to take upon itself certain requirements or conditions. Boeing’s DPA required the company to “to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations.”
This DPA underwent intense scrutiny when the families of victims of the crashed flights went to court to challenge the agreement. The families requested that the court compel the DoJ to revise the agreement so that Boeing would no longer be immune from criminal prosecution, but the court declined to do so.
The end of the DPA’s term occurred earlier this year which then turned into a six-month evaluation period in which the government would assess whether Boeing has adhered to the agreement’s terms. The DoJ concluded that Boeing has failed to uphold these requirements and notified the judge of its decision
The families were once again disappointed with the decision of their case when the DoJ decided to accept the plea deal. Erin Applebaum, a partner at Kreindler & Kreindler LLP, which is representing 34 families who lost loved ones on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, said in a statement that they are “extremely disappointed that DOJ is moving forward with this wholly inadequate plea deal despite the families’ strong opposition to its terms. “While we’re encouraged that Boeing will not be able to choose its own monitor, the deal is still nothing more than a slap on the wrist and will do nothing to effectuate meaningful change within the company,” Applebaum said in the statement.”
Although this plea deal concludes the controversy surrounding the two crashes, it does not provide immunity for other incidents such as the one that involved a panel that blew off during an Alaska Airlines flight. 
Jacob Horowitz is a contributing editor at Compliance Chief 360°