The Justice Department isn’t planning to prosecute Boeing in a case tied to two crashes of the aerospace giant’s 737 Max, a person familiar with the matter said, a tentative agreement that would allow the plane-maker to avoid a guilty plea.
Boeing agreed to plead guilty in the case last summer in a deal with the Justice Department after the Biden administration found earlier that year that the company violated a 2021 agreement tied to the crashes. A judge rejected that plea deal last year, citing concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion, and opened the possibility that Boeing could face trial.
The fraud charge stems from Boeing’s development of the 737 Max. The U.S. had accused Boeing of misleading regulators about its inclusion of a flight-control system on the Max that was later implicated in the two crashes.
A final, non-prosecution agreement hasn’t been reached yet, the person said. The Justice Department and Boeing didn’t immediately comment.
Under the new agreement, Boeing could pay family members of victims of the two Max crashes. In total, the two crashes of the best-selling Boeing jet killed all 346 people on board the planes.
The new tentative agreement, which was reported earlier on Friday by Reuters, would mean Boeing wouldn’t be labeled a felon. That label could have come with restrictions on defense contractor work.
Boeing is the country’s biggest exporter and, in addition to making commercial jetliners, it’s a major defense contractor. The Trump administration recently awarded the company a multibillion-dollar contract to build a next-generation fighter jet.
