The plea agreement between Boeing and the U.S. Dept. of Justice has been rejected by a U.S. federal judge who cited “diversity” provisions in the agreement. In his decision, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor wrote “the Court is not convinced … that the Government will not choose a monitor without race-based considerations and thus will not act in a nondiscriminatory manner. In a case of this magnitude, it is in the utmost interest of justice that the public is confident this monitor selection is done based solely on competency.”
In a hearing on the plea deal in late October, O’Connor asked the Justice Dept. and Boeing to brief him on a detail of their agreement by which DoJ committed to follow its "commitment to diversity and inclusion” when selecting an independent monitor to track Boeing's safety and compliance procedures.
Neither the Justice Department nor Boeing has commented on the Court’s decision to reject the plea deal.
The agreement between the U.S. Dept. of Justice and Boeing involved a guilty plea to a charge of criminal fraud conspiracy, plus a maximum fine of $487.2 million and a penalty that requires Boeing to invest $455 million to regularize its manufacturing programs’ safety standards.
The deal had been challenged by families of the 346 people killed in the two 737 MAX jet crashes, in 2018 and 2019.
The DoJ sued Boeing earlier this year for violating the terms of a 2021 oversight agreement that the company entered into in order to avoid prosecution for its responsibility in the two 737 MAX jet crashes, in 2018 and 2019, which killed a total of 346 people.
While Boeing avoided federal prosecution in 2021, that safeguard was lost once the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Administration began investigating the circumstances leading to the January 5 incident aboard an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 jet.
The federal oversight of the 737 MAX program continues, negatively impacting Boeing’s production rate and revenues.
