After Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA) protested the awarding of the Air Force tankers contract to EADS (Paris: EAD.PA), an investigation was initiated by the Government Accountability Office that has resulted in them agreeing with some of Boeing's assertions.
The GAO said through head of the protest unit, Michael Golden, that "a number of significant errors that could have affected the outcome of what was a close competition between" Boeing and Northrop Grumman Corp (NYSE:NOC).
"We therefore sustained Boeing's protest,"
The one thing that bothers me about this is I knew the second the protest was launched by Boeing that this would be the outcome. Primarily because it became a political football by politicians to use to gain favor with their constituencies.
Acording to the report, the Air Force "'conducted misleading and unequal discussions with Boeing' by telling the company it had fully satisfied a key performance criteria, then later determining that Boeing had only partially met the objective,."
It doesn't bother me that a company in the U.S. could end up with the contract, it bothers me that this probably would have happened if EADS would have won the contract in any way. In other words, it gives the impression that the bidding process may be a sham.
Why go through it if the contract is going to be given to Boeing no matter what the bidding involves? Just quit pretending it's really being taken seriously.
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