World trade body sets to deliver judgment on Boeing, Airbus rift

World trade body sets to deliver judgment on Boeing, Airbus rift
PHOTO CREDIT: WSJ

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is set to make its final ruling over subsidies for rival aircraft makers Boeing and Airbus, a dispute that has pitted the United States against the European Union over the past 15 years.

The expected WTO verdict will decide whether the U.S. has stopped bolstering Boeing since the Geneva-based trade body found in 2012 that the U.S. company received illegal subsidies.

If the WTO says that support measures were scrapped too late, the EU can claim compensation.

The EU has argued that European aircraft maker Airbus suffered immense damages because of unfair competition from Boeing.

However, the WTO has also found that the European bloc violated international trade rules by subsidising Airbus and it ruled in 2018 that the EU failed to phase out all of its support.

Following the latest and final decision that is expected in Geneva, Switzerland; both parties can either let a WTO mediator calculate the damages that each side owes to the other or settle the rift by negotiating a pact.



Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.