Secrets row may cost Boeing $500m

[emad]

Secrets row may cost Boeing $500m
By Katherine Griffiths in New York
Published: 10 September 2005

Boeing may pay $500m (£270m) to settle charges that it stole trade secrets about Lockheed Martin's rocket programme and also recruited a senior official when she was in charge of allocating multibillion-dollar contracts for the US airforce.

The payment could help the company avoid a criminal indictment by the Department of Justice, which has been investigating Boeing over the two matters since 2003.

In what has become one of America's most serious military-procurement scandals of the past two decades, two former high-ranking Boeing executives have already gone to prison and two chief executives have departed. The company has also been stripped of several important contracts.

At $500m, the settlement would be the stiffest financial penalty imposed on a US defence contractor for alleged procurement violations. The discussions are thought to centre on the possibility of the company agreeing to a deferred prosecution agreement.

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article311594.ece

[FormerDittoHead]

1. Let's not lose sight of the fact that it's not the gov't, but CORPORATIONS

doing this stuff.

The gov't didn't waste $700 on toilet seats, some PRIVATE CORPORATION CHARGED them for that....

While the neo-cons constantly tout corporations as some angelic alternative to "big" government, cases such as this should be used as examples that corporations are LESS accountable and just as likely / more likely to engage in corruption than the gov't...

[acmavm]

2. True it was corporations who ripped the US government off. But then

again, it was some government whizbangs that paid 700 bucks for those toilet seats. And they paid it willingly.

It's enough to make your head explode.

[FormerDittoHead]

3. They were bound by contract... I know no more details but

...suffice to say that when gov't and corporations get together, THAT'S when "stuff" happens.

[punpirate]

4. You might want to Google...

... "Operation Ill Wind" and see what you come up with. I think you'll find that these abuses are a result of collusion between government and business--they don't happen when one side doesn't play the game.

Or, just look up Bunnatine Greenhouse to see what happens when corruption in government is endemic.

Cheers.