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Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

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Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#301

Post by gruez »

celdon25 wrote: post #285
gruez wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is whatever Boeing did a "dangerous felony"? Wikipedia suggests not every crime qualifies: >To avoid the need for reliance upon common law interpretations of what felony conduct merges with murder, and what offenses do and do not qualify for felony murder, many U.S. jurisdictions explicitly list what offenses qualify in a felony murder statute. Federal law specifies additional crimes, including terrorism, kidnapping,…

If they can do it to Trump, they can do it to Boeing.

Trump wasn't prosecuted for felony murder, he was prosecuted for a misdemeanor which was upgraded to a felony because it was used to violate campaign finance laws.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#302

Post by gruez »

shakna wrote: post #248
gruez wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is whatever Boeing did a "dangerous felony"? Wikipedia suggests not every crime qualifies: >To avoid the need for reliance upon common law interpretations of what felony conduct merges with murder, and what offenses do and do not qualify for felony murder, many U.S. jurisdictions explicitly list what offenses qualify in a felony murder statute. Federal law specifies additional crimes, including terrorism, kidnapping,…

Knowingly placing thousands of lives at risk, including possible state actors - risking international relationships, whilst also risking damages to critical infrastructure, such as airports, certainly would seem to qualify as a dangerous felony.

The legal system doesn't operate on "seem".

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#303

Post by ajsnigrutin »

constantcrying wrote: post #36
supernova87a wrote: post #25

Our governmental methods of punishment for corporations strike me as lacking. This seems similar to Wells Fargo, where ok, the company was fined, sued, made to pay restitution (somewhat) to victims. But underlying it all, the culture and incentives at the company that produced the situation didn't get fundamentally changed. Which often perpetuates across specific leaders, boards, and is a part of what a company is --…

The problem is that finding the people responsible can be extremely hard, so you have to go against the corporation itself. Punishing a corporation is easy, but the government hates doing it for obvious reasons. It means ruining something which is useful to you and punishing tens of thousands of completely innocent people, with inevitable layoffs. What Boeing really needs is a complete change in management culture, a…

> The problem is that finding the people responsible can be extremely hard, so you have to go against the corporation itself.

It's funny... when some people get paid A LOT of money, it's because they have "a lot of responsibilities", but when something goes wrong, those responsibilities suddenly vanish.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#304

Post by bombcar »

ryandrake wrote: post #191
constantcrying wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a perversion of justice and sets unimaginably bad precedent.

You just keep saying “perversion of justice” over and over as of it is self-evident.

And as if precedent doesn't already exist - check https://treeandneighborlawblog.com for tons of (smaller) examples and also the concepts of "attractive nuisance" and such.

Juries are unlikely to criminally convict in a true case of "didn't know and couldn't know" but they also are likely to award large civil settlements even in those cases.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#305

Post by philipov »

constantcrying wrote: post #75
davedx wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that finding the people responsible can be extremely hard > What Boeing really needs is a complete change in management culture Who is ultimately responsible for management at a company though? The CEO and the other C-level people. This isn't really the daunting difficult problem you make it out to be: the buck stops at the C-suite. Who else could possibly be ultimately responsible??

You can not punish someone for a crime they didn't commit and had no knowledge of. That is ridiculous and a perversion of justice.

Yes you can, it's called Strict Liability. That's the risk they're getting payed billions of dollars to make sure they get right. It's their job to have the knowledge and make sure it doesn't get committed.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#306

Post by sandworm101 »

deeth_starr_v wrote: post #298

From the article: Paul Cassell, a lawyer for victims’ family members, said he plans to ask the federal judge on the case to reject the deal and “simply set the matter for a public trial, so that all the facts surrounding the case will be aired in a fair and open forum before a jury.” Hard to disagree

But who is to prosecute this? If the prosecution and the defendant have already cut a deal, and therefore neither party wants a trial, what is that trial going to look like? They might simply agree to not bring up certain facts or make certain arguments. What the families want is a different prosecutor, one that will do what they want them to do. But prosecutors work for and represent the government, not victims.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#307

Post by Joel_Mckay »

heymijo wrote: post #207

Regarding the "Can/should a CEO or officer be held liable?" dialogue, there is already at least one precedent. The 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act: > The law states that if top corporate executives knowingly sign off on a false financial report, they’re subject to a prison term of up to 10 years and a fine of up to $1 million, with penalties escalating to 20 years and $5 million if their misconduct is willful. [0] Now,…

Actually in most places, technically as president/CEO of a firm you are already liable for any criminal conduct by your firm/employees-on-the-job. The corporate lawyers should have clearly warned them about this already. Additionally, any criminal lawyer should have warned Boeing people it is often around a 10 year jail term for criminal negligence.

Unless the president/CEO can prove they enforced policy to mitigate the issues, than the board may still be in real trouble internationally.

Their best bet is to delay long enough that the general public loses interest in the case.

Have a great day, and remember free parachutes is not a real solution... =3

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#308

Post by watwut »

sandworm101 wrote: post #306
deeth_starr_v wrote: post #298

From the article: Paul Cassell, a lawyer for victims’ family members, said he plans to ask the federal judge on the case to reject the deal and “simply set the matter for a public trial, so that all the facts surrounding the case will be aired in a fair and open forum before a jury.” Hard to disagree

But who is to prosecute this? If the prosecution and the defendant have already cut a deal, and therefore neither party wants a trial, what is that trial going to look like? They might simply agree to not bring up certain facts or make certain arguments. What the families want is a different prosecutor, one that will do what they want them to do. But prosecutors work for and represent the government, not victims.

Prosecutors are not supposed to drop the ball intentionally if the judge rejects the deal. They are supposed to work the case.

Practically, their career would be affected by it too.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#309

Post by chaostheory »

lordnacho wrote: post #55
mulmen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks are not declared too big to fail. They are sometimes described that way. But banks fail all the time. It’s why the FDIC exists. Boeing and the US government have a long and intimate relationship but it is mutual. Boeing was fully vertically integrated until it was favorable to encourage competition in the aviation industry and the US government broke the company up. Boeing is not untouchable.

Think he means certain banks. Think JP Morgan, Citi, that kind of bank, rather than banks as a whole.

You’re describing a GSIB. There are only 4-6 banks in the US that’s considered a GSIB

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#310

Post by carapace »

bluGill wrote: post #249
lenerdenator wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You put in place an incentive to not do these things. Corporate executives and boards do these things because they're incentivized to do so through stock price-based compensation. Great risk should come with great reward. We no longer assign risk to most executives at publicly-traded, multinational corporations, but the reward is still great. I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out what the risk should be, bu…

> I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out what the risk should be, but it should be something that a golden parachute shouldn't be able to resolve. I agree with that statement, but want so add: I believe that whatever you propose will have significant problems and is likely worse than the status quo in some major way. Sometimes I'll only be able to tell you what those problems are in hindsight. Sometimes thos…

Planes are falling out of the sky. I'm a fan of nuance but we're a little past that now.
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