Boeing's Unethical Practices|Business Ethics Case Studies
            

Boeing's Unethical Practices




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Troubles at Boeing

In December 2003, the Boeing Company (Boeing's) CEO, Philip Condit (Condit) resigned amidst widespread criticism against the company's allegedly unethical practices. Though both Boeing and Condit denied that the resignation was a result of ethical lapses in the company, analysts felt otherwise.In mid-2003, Boeing was sued by its competitor, Lockheed Martin Co., (Lockheed)3 for possessing proprietary information belonging to Lockheed.

This resulted in the US Pentagon4 canceling contracts worth over $1 billion awarded to Boeing, and the company was also banned from bidding for defense projects in July 2003. Around the same time, Boeing's tanker lease deal with the US Air Force also came under scrutiny. Earlier the US Air Force had agreed to lease 100 Boeing 767s planes from Boeing. The total cost of the deal was reported to be $19.6 billion.....

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It was alleged that the deal was awarded to Boeing without any competing bids and to make leasing look cheaper than buying them outright (although it actually costed more) Boeing and the US Air Force did some financial jugglery in their calculations of the cost of the planes.Analysts felt that Boeing managed to pocket the deal by lobbying with top defense officials at the Pentagon. It was also alleged that the deal was meant to bail out Boeing from its current financial crisis.As pressure from the media increased, the US Congress agreed to review the entire lease deal right from the negotiations stage. The controversy over the tanker deal resulted in two top executives at Boeing being fired in late November 2003, followed by Condit's resignation. .....

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