Boeing Faces Suit That Adds To Probes Into Rocket Business
Boeing Co., already facing government probes for illicitly obtaining a rival's documents during a major rocket competition, faces a separate private lawsuit alleging the company acquired proprietary documents from that same rival that gave Boeing an edge in bidding for satellite contracts.
A wrongful termination suit filed by Krishnan Raghavan , former chief scientist at Boeing's satellite-making unit, claims the company fired him in August 2001 after he reported that a fellow high-ranking executive had documents belonging to Lockheed Martin Corp. that were intended to help Boeing win a commercial-satellite competition.
The lawsuit, filed in January 2002 in California state court in Los Angeles, had gone largely unnoticed until the recent start of government probes into Boeing's rocket business.
According to Boeing papers included in the court record, a subsequent internal Boeing investigation substantiated Mr. Raghavan's assertion about the Lockheed documents. The Boeing papers say its rival's documents totaled more than 8,800 pages and included financial and bidding information, overhead costs, marketing strategy and other sensitive information.
Mr. Raghavan's suit alleges that the documents "bestowed" an "unfair competitive advantage [to Boeing] in competing for past and ongoing commercial satellite projects" potentially worth billions of dollars.
But Boeing, the giant commercial airplane manufacturer and the world's biggest satellite maker, contends the scientist was laid off as part of a general downsizing and for other reasons, not because he blew the whistle. "Boeing doesn't terminate people for pointing out unethical conduct by another employee," said spokesman Dan Beck. Mr. Raghavan, through his attorney, declined to comment.
The case threatens to undercut Chicago-based Boeing's assertions that any wrongdoing at its rocket-making unit was an aberration. The Air Force and Justice Department are each investigating Boeing for allegedly illegally obtaining and using Lockheed documents in a 1998 competition to build the government's next generation rocket to launch satellites into space. The matter has potentially major ramifications for Boeing, which faces losing hundreds of millions of dollars of existing government rocket orders and could even be barred from other federal work.
Many of the questions and legal issues raised by the wrongful termination suit appear to parallel those Boeing is struggling with in the rocket controversy. They include: How did such a large volume of Lockheed documents end up inside Boeing; who knew about them and why did Boeing fail to quickly return all of the suspect material to Lockheed? Boeing officials say the rocket documents weren't used to gain competitive advantage. Boeing's filings in the lawsuit indicate that only a handful of company officials had access to the satellite documents.
Boeing officials have worked hard, both inside and outside the Pentagon, to squelch concerns about the company's integrity. In an unusual move, the company plans to suspend normal operations throughout its entire space and defense unit on July 30, to give employees a chance to participate in a four-hour session focused on ethics.
Boeing Thursday hired former New Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman, now a partner in the Washington office of law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, to do an independent evaluation to verify that the rocket incident was an "exceptional violation of company policy," and to make public recommendations for improvements.
Mr. Raghavan alleges Boeing fired him after he reported that Dean Farmer, a Boeing colleague who had worked at Lockheed's satellite unit from 1996 until 2000, sent him an e-mail in April 2001 that had Lockheed proprietary documents attached, according to court filings in the case. Mr. Raghavan then told Boeing ethics officials that Mr. Farmer, who had been hired in September 2000 to help revitalize the Boeing satellite unit as head of new business development, intended to use some of the information to provide Boeing an "unfair advantage in a competition with his former employer," according to the lawsuit.
The competition in question, discussed in other court documents, relates to a commercial satellite for New Skies Satellites N.V., a Netherlands company that in March 2001 chose a Boeing spacecraft over one offered by Lockheed.
Boeing's examination of Mr. Farmer's computer files uncovered thousands of pages of Lockheed proprietary documents as well as a substantial number of other files "most likely confidential and of a proprietary nature," according to a termination letter from Boeing to Mr. Farmer in May 2001, which is included in the court record. Mr. Farmer, the court record shows, said he was using the documents as templates for laying out Boeing's own data and not for inappropriate reasons. In an interview Thursday Mr. Farmer said that instead of being fired, he agreed to resign. He also said he offered to Lockheed to return all of the material, but that company never responded to his offer.
Boeing early on offered to turn over to Lockheed a hard drive containing all of the suspect satellite documents, but for various reasons that also never occurred, according to one person familiar with the matter. Since the satellite documents didn't involve federal contracts, Boeing wouldn't have been obligated to return the material, as its rocket unit was required to do under the federal Procurement Integrity Act.
The latest controversy could impact the Air Force's investigation since Lockheed recently notified the Air Force about the lawsuit, another person familiar with the matter said. In the rocket case, Boeing initially fired two mid-level managers and returned only seven pages of documents to Lockheed. Over the following four years, Boeing has returned nearly 40,000 additional pages of documents to Lockheed in a piecemeal fashion.
Mr. Raghavan is seeking $5 million in damages, and a hearing in the case is expected in coming weeks.
波音被前雇员起诉在报告公司不当行为后遭解雇
据《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)获悉的消息，正在美国政府对波音公司(Boeing Co., BA)在火箭项目中使用不正当手段获得竞争对手文件一事展开调查之际，该公司又面临另外一项起诉。该起诉指控波音从同一竞争对手处获得文件，在卫星合同的竞购中占了优势。
由波音卫星制造子公司前首席科学家Krishnan Raghavan提起的诉讼称，在他报告了公司一名高层管理人士手中持有洛克希德马丁公司(Lockheed Martin Corp., LMT)的文件，此人打算以此帮助波音赢得商用卫星业务的竞争后，波音公司于2001年8月份解雇了他。该诉讼是2002年1月份在洛杉矶的加州法院提起的，直到最近政府开始调查波音公司的火箭合同之前，该诉讼一直并未引起太多注意。
包括在法庭纪录中的波音公司文件显示，波音公司随后进行的内部调查证实了Raghavan有关洛克希德马丁文件的指控。波音的文件称，其竞争对手的文件长度超过8,800页，包括财务和报价信息，企业管理成本，市场策略和其他敏感信息。Raghavan的指控称，这些文件使波音公司在过去和正在进行的商用卫星项目竞标中获得了不公平的竞争优势，而这些项目的价值高达数十亿美元。
但是波音公司认为，这位科学家被解雇是公司裁员计划的一部分，解雇是因为其他原因所致，而不是因为他对文件一事的报告。 公司发言人Dan Beck通过律师表示，公司不会因为员工指出其他员工的不道德行为而解雇该员工。但他拒绝发表评论。
波音公司此前发表声明说，发生在火箭制造子公司的不正当行为是反常的，而Raghavan提起的这一诉讼使该公司此前声明的真实性受到了质疑。美国空军(Air Force)和司法部(Justice Department)正在对波音1998年在制造下一代发射卫星上天的火箭项目中非法获得和使用洛克希德马丁的文件一事进行调查。Raghavan提起的诉讼又使此案横生枝节。波音可能会失去政府的数亿美元火箭合同，甚至可能会被禁止获得联邦合同。
Raghavan寻求500万美元的损害赔偿，下周将举行此案的听证会。
