In a shocking legal move, the US law firm Ribbeck Law Chartered is seeking up to $58 billion in compensation for the families of victims killed in the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max crash. This amount is more than double the initial $24.8 billion requested by the victims’ families.
The dispute centers around a recent plea agreement reached between the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and Boeing. On July 24, 2024, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and pay fines ranging from $243.6 million to $487 million. However, Ribbeck Law Chartered argues that this compensation is grossly inadequate given the scale of Boeing’s misconduct.
“The proposed fine is grossly inadequate and fails to meet the standards set by prior precedents in penalizing corporations for similar egregious conduct,” said Manuel von Ribbeck, Founding Partner at Ribbeck Law Chartered, in a plea submission to a US District Court.
The law firm is pushing for a much higher compensation amount of between $47 billion to $58 billion, citing several previous cases where corporations were fined billions for financial fraud. These include a $25 billion settlement in 2012 involving JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and GMAC, as well as a $16 billion settlement paid by Bank of America in 2014.
Ribbeck Law Chartered also referenced a previous fraud case involving Boeing, where the company paid $615 million in a civil settlement and $50 million for potentially criminal conduct after obtaining insider information from a US government official.
“Boeing’s actions were not just regulatory missteps; they were deliberate and deceitful measures to prioritize profit over human lives. Such conduct demands the highest levels of accountability and a penalty that truly reflects the magnitude of the crime,” Ribbeck added.
The Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10, 2019, killed all 149 people on board, including 9 Ethiopians among 35 other nationalities. This tragedy, along with a similar crash involving a Lion Air flight less than five months earlier, prompted global groundings of the Boeing 737 Max and a major investigation into the aircraft’s design and certification process.
Ribbeck Law Chartered argues that the DOJ’s current recommendation does not align with the scale of Boeing’s wrongdoing and sets a dangerous precedent, allowing large corporations to evade appropriate punishment for criminal activities that jeopardize public safety and trust.
The lawyers are urging the US District Court to dismiss the proposed plea agreement and require Boeing to pay a substantially higher fine that reflects the gravity of the situation and serves as a deterrent to other corporations engaging in similar misconduct.
