- Northrop Grumman's (NYSE:NOC) winning bid to develop and build the U.S. Air Force's new bomber held “significant structural advantages” over a competing proposal by Boeing (NYSE:BA) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), according to a declassified version of a February ruling from the Government Accountability Office.
- The “significantly lower proposed prices” for initial production “created a near-insurmountable obstacle” to Boeing in the Air Force’s calculation of realistic costs, according to the GAO report, which also said its review of Boeing’s protest filed after the award to NOC "provides no basis on which to sustain the protest.”
- After rejecting Boeing’s challenge for the bomber program valued at as much as $80B, the GAO initially had kept its findings secret.