Boeing 777 rolling out of factory in Washington state. Photo, courtesy of Boeing.
The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) appellate body issued a ruling Monday, reversing a November 2016 ruling by a lower WTO panel that said Washington state has provided illegal subsidies through a tax incentive for production of the Boeing 777X. Under the ruling, which is final, WTO has found that none of the tax incentives provided to Boeing by Washington state were illegal.
WTO’s dispute settlement body will now consider the decision for formal adoption within 20 days.
Boeing called the decision a “significant victory” for its “long-running dispute with the European Union over aerospace subsidies.”
“In addition to reversing the previous ruling on the tax incentive, the new ruling ends the most recent of two WTO cases the EU brought against the United States in retaliation for the successful U.S. challenge of the massive subsidies European governments provide to Airbus,” Boeing said in a press release.
In response to WTO’s decision on the ruling, Airbus Executive Vice President of Communications Rainer Ohler said, “Boeing illegal subsidies are still illegal and need to be removed.”
“The ‘game’ is far from over,” said Ohler.
Check out the full report on “United States Conditional Tax Incentives for Large Civil Aircraft” published by WTO.