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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a83gJ6Kzgr2c&refer=home
Boeing Wins Protest of Northrop Aerial-Tanker Award (Update2)
By Edmond Lococo and Gopal Ratnam
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June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. deserves another chance to bid on the $35 billion U.S. Air Force aerial-tanker contract won by rival Northrop Grumman Corp., a government agency said.
``Our review of the record led us to conclude that the Air Force had made a number of significant errors that could have affected the outcome of what was a close competition between Boeing and Northrop Grumman,'' the U.S. Government Accountability Office announced today in Washington. ``We therefore sustained Boeing's protest.''
Boeing appealed to the GAO after Northrop and partner European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. won the contract Feb. 29, snaring a program that had been Boeing's for more than half a century. Boeing claimed changes the Air Force made during the competition favored Northrop. The selection of Northrop was undermined June 12 when both companies confirmed the Air Force miscalculated operating costs of the competing aircraft.
``While the variance in costs is trivial, it points to a broader erosion in the government's rationale for picking the Northrop-EADS plane,'' Loren Thompson, an analyst at Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Virginia-based public policy research group, said in an e-mail before the announcement. ``The outcome of the competition was fairly close, as Boeing has argued in its filings, rather than a decisive win for the Northrop-EADS team as the Air Force asserts.''
Boeing shares have declined 11 percent since the decision, compared with a 12 percent drop in Northrop. Boeing rose $1.08 to $75.46 at 1:22 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange trading, while Northrop fell 33 cents to $70.76.