An acknowledgment by Boeing’s CEO that a new maneuvering system in the company’s 737-Max airplanes contributed to two fatal crashes could leave Boeing exposed to billions of dollars in legal liabilities, experts say.

Still, CEO Dennis Muilenburg’s statement may be an effort to show that Boeing remains in control of the situation, protecting its reputation and minimizing future losses by ensuring airlines, flyers and investors keep faith in the company.

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Stanford Law Professor Robert Rabin, an expert on torts who has tracked the matter, said it’s too early to tell precisely how Muilenburg’s statement will affect Boeing’s liability.

But “based on what we have up to now and what the CEO said in his statement, it does seem that there’s a very strong case of liability,” Rabin said. “It seems clear that there was a defect in the operation of the sensors to begin with.”

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Muilenburg’s statement may have been designed to mitigate the public relations blow to Boeing’s reputation because the company wants to show customers that it’s in control of the situation, Stanford’s Rabin said.

“It’s not going to threaten Boeing’s solvency,” he said. “The bigger financial threat to Boeing is if they lose future business or some of the contracts that are already outstanding.”

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Rabin said that settlements are common in these types of cases so that victims and the targeted corporation can avoid a long period of uncertainty and costly legal tangling.