26.01.2021 - 12:17 UTC
Ethiopian Airlines (ET, Addis Ababa), which lost 157 passengers and crew in the second fatal crash of a B737-8 in early 2019, has been advised not to accept a settlement offer of USD500 million to USD600 million by Boeing, but to sue the manufacturer for punitive damages in the US, reports The Seattle Times.
In a letter to Chief Executive Officer Tewolde GebreMariam on January 24, 2021, Chicago-based law firm DiCello Levitt Gutzler - which Ethiopian Airlines hired to provide advice on its claims against Boeing – warned the offer fell “grossly short” of what the airline could win before a US jury. This was particularly so since Boeing recently accepted responsibility for criminal fraud during the aircraft’s certification by regulators, said the letter signed by co-founding partner Adam Levitt.
The settlement Boeing offered was “a mere fraction” of the actual damage, the lawyers told Tewolde, and accepting it would “be a tremendous political and financial mistake for Ethiopian Airlines,” they claimed. The letter conveyed the attorneys’ concern that direct settlement negotiations between Boeing...
11.01.2021 - 01:18 UTC
The United States Department of Justice has fined Boeing (BOE, Chicago O'Hare) more than USD2.5 billion, charging it with “a conspiracy to defraud” the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Evaluation Group in connection with the B737 MAX.
The manufacturer’s employees “chose the path of profit over candor by concealing material information” from the regulator and “engaged in an effort to cover up their deception,” David P Burns, acting assistant attorney general of the justice department’s criminal division, said in a statement dated January 7.
Boeing entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) in connection with criminal information filed on the same day at the Northern District of Texas court, under whose terms it will pay USD2.27 billion in compensation to the families of the 346 people killed in the Lion Air (JT, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) and Ethiopian Airlines (ET, Addis Ababa) B737-8 crashes and a USD243.6 million fine.
The ruling followed a congressional investigation in March 2020 which concluded that the manufacturer promoted a “culture of concealment” and was “grossly inefficient” in...
24.11.2020 - 00:54 UTC
The District Court of Central Jakarta dismissed on November 20 two bankruptcy lawsuits against Lion Air Group filed by two individuals, Budi Santoso and Rolas Budiman Sitinjak, regarding alleged “overdue payment of debt obligations” (a procedure known in Indonesia as Penundaan Kewajiban Pembayaran Utang - PKPU).
“The court has rejected the PKPU request in its entirety. We welcome the court’s decision,” declared Danang Mandala Prihantoro, the Lion Air (JT, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) parent’s head of strategic corporate communications, as quoted by the newspaper Suara Merdeka.
Prihantoro explained that the lawsuit had been rejected because Lion Air had completed its obligations to the applicants and other creditors by entrusting the issue to the court. The decision was executed on consignment and accepted by the panel of judges.
“In its operations, Lion Air obeys and complies with applicable regulations,” he underlined.
As previously reported, Santoso sued Lion Air Group on October 22, according to local media.
05.10.2020 - 00:14 UTC
A group of founders of Lion Air Group, including its co-owner Rusdi Kirana, has filed an application for an Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) for a new airline that would allow the group to distance itself from the 2018 Lion Air (JT, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) B737-8 crash, Bloomberg has reported.
While a Lion Air spokesperson declined to comment on the development, a Ministry of Transport official, Budi Prayitno, confirmed that authorities were processing several new AOC applications but would not go into details about their identities.
At this stage, it is unclear if the recertification procedure has been launched by Lion Air Group (which also includes Wings Air (Indonesia), Batik Air, Malindo Air, and Thai Lion Air) itself or by the same founders but without formal affiliation with the group.
The October 2018 crash of Lion Air's B737 MAX 8 PK-LQP (msn 43000) shortly after take-off from Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta was the first of two fatal crashes attributed to the failure of the type's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) system. The...
