Boeing has agreed to pay $2.5bn to resolve a criminal charge of misleading federal aviation regulators assigned to adjudicate the safety of the 737 Max.
The US Department of Justice on Thursday said it had reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the Chicago aerospace manufacturer, the result of a criminal investigation of Boeing following two crashes in five months that killed a combined 346 people.
Prosecutors charged the company with one count of conspiracy to defraud the US, according to documents filed on Thursday in federal court in Texas. The charge stems from what Erin Nealy Cox, US attorney for the northern district of Texas, characterised as Boeing’s “misleading statements, half-truths and omissions” to the US Federal Aviation Administration.