Boeing asked U.S. Dist. Court, Orlando, in a motion filed late Th...

win contracts in the U.S. Air Force (AF) evolved expendable launch vehicle (EELV) competition (CD June 11 p12). Boeing said that although Lockheed’s suit identified the facts of the situation correctly, Lockheed “is trying to transform a claim for theft of trade secrets and related business torts into a complex and sprawling racketeering and antitrust case far removed from the facts.” The counts in question deal with racketeering, conspiracy and procurement integrity, all of which were brought against Boeing, which said it was an “effort to damage Boeing’s reputation through this opportunistic litigation.” The AF recently completed its investigation of the EELV competition, concluding that the former employees had been in possession of the documents during the competition (CD July 25 p1), but a Boeing spokesman said the company didn’t dispute that: “We acknowledge the fact that the employees were in possession of proprietary documents. We're challenging the allegation that they were used to gain an advantage.” Since the suit still is in progress, the spokesman said, he couldn’t explain what the company thought the former employees were doing with the documents. Boeing said its motion didn’t “challenge Lockheed’s trade secret and related business tort claims,” but the spokesman said that a pending motion would. He also confirmed that reports that the company planned to challenge the AF’s decision were untrue. Meanwhile, Boeing reported that its launch of the AF satellite DSCS 3-B6 would be delayed at least until today (Aug. 4) in order to complete additional testing. The launch had been scheduled for Sun.