Grounding a Shakedown?

It is just a corporate firing, but the dismissal of a Boeing CFO for hiring an Air Force honcho just as Boeing was closing a huge deal with the Pentagon may just start to correct things. Boeing has the government on the hook for a multi-billion dollar, wholly-illogical lease of tanker aircraft. With the company's investigation of its federal business ongoing, taxpayers may yet see relief.

Comments

[david]

This is just sad…all of the people involved truly should have (and did, I’m sure) known better.

[Jon H]

“With the company’s investigation of its federal business ongoing, taxpayers may yet see relief.”

Not likely. The market has shrunk so much that the government couldn’t cut Boeing off if it wanted to. In many areas, cutting off Boeing as a penalty would leave the Pentagon with only one other company to buy from.

They either require, or prefer, to have at least two potential suppliers to deal with for any particular contract (I suppose for competitive bidding, etc).

I think there was actually a recent case where Boeing was cut off from bidding for some period of years, but it was quietly ended after a matter of months.

So, basically, there have been so many mergers that Boeing (and, presumably, the competition whose name escapes me) knows that it is essentially untouchable. No matter what they do, the Pentagon will still have to buy from them.