Boeing shareholders sue board of directors for management of 737 MAX.
Boeing’s shareholders filed a lawsuit against members of the board of directors, including CEO David Calhoun and his predecessor Dennis Muilenburg, for failing to take the necessary steps to prevent the 737 MAX crisis.
See also: FAA chief will fly the Boeing 737 Max for evaluation.
The lawsuit, consulted on Friday by AFP, was filed in June in a Delaware court, before being updated in September.
The plaintiffs accuse the members of the board of directors, the body that supposedly oversees the company’s management, of not having put in place the tools to evaluate and control the safety of the 737 MAX before the two fatal accidents involving that plane, which led to the banning of that model from flying around the world in March 2019.
They mention, for example, the absence of a committee dedicated to security or a whistleblower system.
According to the lawsuit, the members of the board of directors have “no excuse” for not having ensured the safety of the aircraft, especially after they were alerted, on several occasions, to problems in the design, manufacture and marketing of other company aircraft.
These allegations have been strongly refuted by Boeing. “As expected… in a lawsuit like this, the complaint presents a biased and misleading version of the facts of the activities of Boeing and its board of directors,” the company’s spokesman reacted.
The lawsuits are “unfounded” and Boeing will work to have the complaint dismissed before the end of the year, he added.
The Wall Street Journal, the bible of business circles, was the first media outlet to publish a story about the lawsuit on Friday.
To support the allegations, the plaintiffs filed internal company documents. Some details were censored for confidentiality reasons.
Board members and appointed officials, such as Chief Financial Officer Greg Smith, were accused of failing in their duty by not doing enough to ensure the safety of Boeing’s aircraft.
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs demand that the board members and officers they accuse reimburse Boeing for the financial losses they incurred due to their lack of oversight, as well as for all compensation received in the course of their duties.
Boeing is already the subject of several investigations into the accidents at Lion Air in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines in March 2019, which left a total of 346 deaths.
By AFP
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