It is kind of amazing that a corporation can get a deferred prosecution agreement based on a monetary penalty.
If I had killed someone, would I be allowed to buy my freedom?
If I had killed someone, would I be allowed to buy my freedom?
Deferred prosecution saves a lot of money and time, on both sides, as well as deflects some amount of discovery. It also leaves a sword of Damocles over them that if they don’t reform everything they hoped to avoid by paying all that money comes back upon them and worse.
This feels like a pretty effective way to punish and attempt to reform a corporation. The fact Boeing is so managed by the accountants that even their lawyers can’t convince them to stop cutting corners and trying to get away with substandard work to juice EPS is baffling though. The fact literally everyone on earth knows this is the problem yet they are still appointing a new airplanes unit CEO that is an accountant doubly so. (No joke, undergrad in accounting, MBA, both marginal schools)
But material consequences for companies are monetary and since a company’s life is money, that’s actually usually pretty compelling.
In some cases this has been allowed, assuming it was not intentional. For example a neurosurgeon who accidentally hits someone in a crosswalk. The family can ask for no jail time so the surgeon can continue practicing because that's the only way the civil settlement will get paid. This depends on the victim or family's wishes, whether or not the prosecutor will approve, and what the judge thinks.
From a societal view and the victim's view it might be a better outcome to get monetary compensation.
FWIW since Boeing is too big to fail I'd love to see the US Government get rid of the current upper management and board. Put engineers back in charge and move HQ back to Seattle.
Boeing's "new" CEO is another accountant. How much do you think he really cares or even understands the engineering and process issues? And how long do you think that "care" will last once the heat dies down?
I'm not getting off with anything less than jail time.
So to get prosecuted by the DoJ, you'd need to kill one of those groups.
For example, say you shove someone on a plane and they fall and hit their head - federal manslaughter that would likely be a candidate for deferred prosecution.
You mean like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Team_(law) ?
One difference between an individual and a company is the former can't be guilty of a crime because of knowledge held by the hand and imputed to the person by law, but not possessed by the brain.
Which was pretty much the basis for the deferred prosecution agreement here, and why besides the monetary penalty Boeing was obligated to take steps to prevent similar frauds.
Get a very expensive defense team. There are too many instances of people who bought their freedom that way.
But those have their own separate issues, of course.