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(Washington, D.C.) Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today presented the Boeing Corporation with its first annual “Corporate Turkey of the Year Award” in recognition of a year of unparalleled corporate scandal, waste, and abuse. The award is given to corporations that receive government bailouts, abuse federal contracts, and risk taxpayer dollars.
"Boeing had a banner year for scandal and ethical abuse," CAGW President Tom Schatz said. “Since the federal government rewarded Boeing’s misconduct with additional federal contracts, CAGW felt it was appropriate to reward them too.”
Boeing started the year with a textbook example of misconduct when the General Accounting Office revealed in January that the company improperly obtained Raytheon’s proprietary information while competing with that company for a multi-billion dollar rocket contract with the federal government.
Following up on that scandal, Boeing refused to rest on its misconduct. Later in July, the Air Force found that Boeing improperly obtained more than 38,000 proprietary documents while competing with Lockheed Martin for a $2.8 billion dollar satellite contract and suspended a division of Boeing for 90 days. Boeing earned bonus points in the scandal rankings when the Department of Justice brought criminal charges against Boeing employees in connection with the matter.
Finally, Boeing secured its position as the number one corporate turkey when it was subject to another federal investigation in August by the U.S. Air Force's Inspector General (IG). The IG received information that Boeing improperly obtained internal Pentagon information while negotiating the proposed tanker-lease deal. Incredibly, Boeing still won the $20 billion contract despite the ongoing investigation.
“Boeing won more than $22 billion in government contracts despite an amazing display of corporate misconduct, ethical improprieties and irresponsibility,” Schatz continued. “After improperly obtaining proprietary information from numerous competitors and even the Pentagon, Boeing continued to win sweetheart deals from the government and rip off taxpayers.”
“With MCI and other corporate criminals in the running, the competition was tough,” Schatz concluded. “At the end of the day, no one could match Boeing’s persistent and single-minded dedication to low ethical standards and financial harm to taxpayers.”
Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
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