The Government Accountability Office has said that Northrop Grumman™s (NYSE: NOC) proposal for the U.S. Air Force™s Long Range Strike Bomber program held œsignificant structural advantages over a bid by the team of Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
Anthony Capaccio and Julie Johnsson write GAO made the statement in a declassified copy of its February ruling to uphold the service branch™s decision to select Northrop for the LRSB program.
The Boeing-Lockheed team then decided not to pursue their legal challenge of the contract award in federal claims court a week after GAO denied their protest.
The congressional watchdog™s assessment of Boeing™s claims œprovides no basis on which to sustain the protest and that the service branch œconducted a reasonable cost evaluation, Susan Poling, GAO™s general counsel, said in a redacted form of the 52-page decision.
The Air Force selected Northrop in October 2015 for the potential $80 billion contract to build the new B-21 bomber aircraft that is scheduled for deployment in the mid-2020s, according to the report.
