Boeing Stock (NYSE:BA) Notches Up With Court Settlements
Good news for aerospace stock Boeing (BA) on the legal front, as it just took care of a couple court cases before jury selection processes could even fire up. That news proved welcome enough to investors, who sent shares up fractionally in Monday afternoon's trading.
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The cases in question were connected to an Ethopian Airlines flight in which a 737 Max crashed, and Boeing, back in 2021, agreed to acknowledge its liability in the crash, which reportedly killed 157 people. Two of those—Antoine Lewis and Darcy Belanger—people's families instead decided to settle, reports noted.
This was supposed to be the start of a major trial in the U.S. District Court in Chicago, but Boeing's move to settle in advance has pulled the teeth out of that part of the trial process. That in turn should likely prove to be good news for Boeing, who now will not have to deal with yet another trial screaming about how its planes failed. And that is press that Boeing certainly does not need right now.
Not All the Court Cases Were So Good
But as is so often the case for Boeing, not everything could go its way. New reports suggest that Boeing will face a suit after all in the 11 th Circuit, as a federal court in Alabama went a bit too far in its dismissal of claims.
The report noted that several companies brought trade secret theft claims against Boeing, stemming from allegations from 2008 that Boeing took these trade secrets to use for itself when it went to bid on an Air Force contract. The companies in question, which were aircraft maintenance and engineering operations, had contracts with Boeing that actually invalidated most of the claims, but the operative word there was 'most.' The claim for 'unjust enrichment' can move forward, the court found, as it was not excluded by the contracts.
Is Boeing a Good Stock to Buy Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on BA stock based on 12 Buys, five Holds and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 24.19% loss in its share price over the past year, the average BA price target of $195.87 per share implies 42.84% upside potential.
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