Boeing is to be tried for fraud in a Texas court after the families of victims of the 737 MAX crashes opposed legal immunity granted to the manufacturer.
In January 2021, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) granted immunity to Boeing when the manufacturer agreed to pay a total criminal monetary amount of over $2.5 billion to settle the case.
In October 2022, Federal judge Reed O’Connor ruled that the agreement reached between Boeing and the DoJ violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.
‘The Court finds that the tragic loss of life that resulted from the two airplane crashes was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of Boeing’s conspiracy to defraud the United States,’ the judge wrote at the time.
O’Connor ordered the US-based aircraft manufacturer to appear in the Fort Worth court on January 26, 2023, to be charged with fraud.