Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge related to the fatal 737 Max crashes, the Justice Department announced on Sunday.
As part of the deal, Boeing will pay a $243.6 million fine.
Faced with the prospect of a trial or accepting the guilty plea and its terms, Boeing opted for the plea deal just as it was attempting to recover from its manufacturing and safety crises, appoint a new CEO, and acquire its fuselage maker, Spirit AeroSystems.
The guilty plea will label Boeing a felon, potentially complicating its ability to sell products to the U.S. government.
In May, the Justice Department declared that Boeing had violated the 2021 agreement.
The U.S. accused Boeing of conspiracy to defraud the government by misleading regulators about the inclusion of a flight-control system on the Max that was later implicated in two crashes-a Lion Air flight in October 2018 and an Ethiopian Airlines flight in March 2019.
U.S. prosecutors informed victims' families on June 30 that they planned to seek a guilty plea from Boeing, a move family attorneys criticized as "a sweetheart deal."
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