A Boeing 737 MAX 7 aircraft lands during an evaluation flight at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, September 30, 2020.
Lindsey Wasson | Reuters
Boeing will pay $200 million and then-CEO Dennis Muilenburg will pay $1 million to settle the lawsuit for misleading investors after two fatal crashes involving 737 Max jets, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday.
“In times of crisis and tragedy, it is especially important that publicly traded companies and executives provide complete, fair and truthful information to the markets. The Boeing Company and its former CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, have failed to honor this most basic obligation,” said SEC statement. chair. Gary Gensler in a statement.
The two crashes – one in October 2018 and another in March 2019 – killed all 346 people on board the two flights and grounded jet aircraft worldwide. The grounding was first lifted at the end of 2020.
Boeing fired Muilenberg in December 2019 amid the extensive grounding of the planes and comments about when it expected regulators to release the planes to fly again. The comments also undermined the manufacturer’s relationship with the Federal Aviation Administration, leading to public admonitions by the regulator.
“Today’s settlement is part of the company’s wider efforts to responsibly resolve outstanding legal cases related to the 737 MAX accidents in a manner that serves the interests of our shareholders, employees and other stakeholders” Boeing said in a statement.
Neither Boeing nor Muilenburg have admitted or denied the SEC’s findings, the agency said.
In January 2021, Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle a criminal investigation with the Justice Department over the planes.
Two damning congressional investigations after the crashes found management, design and regulatory flaws in the development and certification of the 737 Max. That led to new legislation to reform aircraft certification, giving the FAA more control over the process.