WTO delivers ruling on 15-year-long Boeing vs Airbus rift

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 later in Geneva, Washington and Brussels can either let a WTO mediator calculate the damages that each side owes to the other. The decision also said they can settle the dispute by negotiating a pact.

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