US aircraft manufacturer Boeing and its former CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, have been fined $200 million after the company was accused by the US Securities and Exchange Commission of making false statements about the safety of the 737 Max model. Statements that were made after two accidents occurred with these aircraft that killed more than 300 people.

According to the Financial Times quoted by the newspaper de Negócios, both the company and the former CEO have agreed to pay the fine to end the lawsuit in which it is accused of misleading investors about the safety of this model aircraft. Muilenburg will pay $1 million, with neither Boeing nor the former CEO admitting or denying the regulator's findings.

At issue are two accidents that occurred, one in 2018 off the coast of Indonesia with Lion Air, and another in 2019 in Ethiopia with Ethiopian Airlines. In total, the two accidents killed 346 people.

At the time, Boeing attributed the cause of the accidents to pilot error and aircraft maintenance failures.

Boeing was later found to have misled regulators and pilots about the new system as it tried to get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. According to the investigations, the crashes of the aircraft, both 737 Max models, were caused by a glitch in the MCAS flight software and this aircraft model was forced to be grounded for 20 months worldwide.

"After the first accident, Boeing and Muilenburg knew that MCAS was a safety issue, but assured the public that the 737 Max was 'as safe as any aircraft that has ever flown,'" the Commission recalled in a statement. "After the second accident, Boeing and Muilenburg assured the public that there were no errors or breaches in the MCAS certification process, despite reports to the contrary," the regulator stressed.