Washington – Boeing chairman and chief executive James McNerney apologized Tuesday for a series of scandals that forced out two of his predecessors and led the company to pay a record $615 million settlement to the Justice Department.
McNerney called the June 30 settlement – which ended a three-year federal investigation into the aerospace giant’s defense contracting practices – “tough but fair.” McNerney, who took over as CEO of Chicago-based Boeing Co. in July 2005, won praise from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee for deciding not to seek a tax write-off worth as much as $200 million from the Justice Department settlement. Senators from both parties worried that Boeing would seek the tax deduction and dilute the settlement’s impact.
