Posted: Tue, Apr 27, 2004, 2:17 PM ET (1817 GMT)
Boeing is facing additional investigations by federal prosecutors for alleged improper use of a competitor's proprietary documents when bidding on launch contracts, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Investigators with both the Pentagon and the Justice Department are looking into claims that a Boeing employee, who formerly worked for Lockheed Martin, provided his managers with proprietary documents from his former employer dealing with the costs of its Atlas launch vehicles. Boeing reportedly used that information to prepare bids for Air Force and NASA launch contracts, including a large Delta 2 launch contract the company won in late 2002. The renewed investigation comes just as Boeing and the Air Force have been working out an agreement to end the company's suspension from bidding on military launch contracts. That ban was imposed last summer after a previous investigation turned up evidence Boeing used proprietary Lockheed documents when preparing its bid for the first EELV contracts.

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•  Wall Street Journal article (subscription required)
•  Reuters article