Delta Loses Court Battle to Boeing Over Ex-Im Bank

The specific issue in this case was an Ex-Im Bank loan guarantee to Air India to purchase new jets from Boeing. Delta, and its co-plaintiffs, argued that the loan guarantees amounted to support for foreign carriers to compete against U.S. carriers.

According to the court ruling, using the largest possible savings in interest costs as a result of the Ex-Im Bank’s guarantees, Air India would have saved $12 million in interest payments over the 12-year life of the loan. The judge was not impressed:

Economically speaking, Plaintiffs’ hypothetical is unconvincing because it seems to treat the total $12 million in interest savings over the life of the loan as an upfront cash payment that Air India could accumulate and immediately use to buy new aircraft, which clearly is not accurate or realistic. Yet even treating the interest savings this way, Plaintiffs’ suggestion that any financially sensible airline would commit to purchase aircraft that are worth $360 million, and that therefore would cost between $3 billion and $5.25 billion to operate over the lifespan of the aircraft, in order to save $12 million over 12 years in another transaction is unpersuasive and contrary to the record in this case.

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The Ex-Im Bank’s charter expires at the end of June. If Congress does not even hold a reauthorization vote, the bank will die without a sound. That would suit the most conservative political elements in Congress and the country who want the bank to disappear because they view it as just another government subsidy, or more derisively, “crony capitalism.” The president of a conservative group named Freedom Partners told The New York Times, “[W]e are not in this to pick and choose which corporations are beneficiaries of any particular government subsidy. We are trying to get rid of all of them.”

The opposing argument is basically everybody’s doing it so we have to, too. Canada, China, Japan, France, Germany, all have similar export credit agencies. In Boeing’s case, its only rival, Airbus, could offer loan guarantees Boeing could not match without the Ex-Im Bank, unless Boeing guaranteed the loans on its own. S&P Ratings Services has estimated that would amount to $3.5 billion to $5.5 billion in export sales.

Even though the Ex-Im Bank is often maligned as the “Bank of Boeing,” about 90% of its 3,746 authorizations for guarantees, insurance and working capital in 2014 and $5.1 billion of its authorized funds went to U.S. small businesses. Boeing received $6.1 billion in guarantees in 2014.

Congress can kill the Ex-Im Bank by simply doing nothing. If there’s one thing Congress does know how to do, that’s it.

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