Boeing loses lawsuit on pricing for GPS satellites

WASHINGTON --The Air Force can disclose the rates that Boeing Co. charged for the next generation of global positioning satellites to the public and its competitors, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler rejects Boeing's effort to reverse an Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center decision to comply with a Freedom of Information request filed five years ago about the satellite contract the company won in 1996.

Chicago-based Boeing says it believes the request, filed through a third party, is from its chief competitor, Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp.

Boeing objected to the release of pricing information. The company says disclosing the information will allow competitors to figure out its labor and profit rates, which the company wants to keep secret.

The contract, which was competitively bid, was for Boeing to build and launch six satellites and included options for 27 more. In March 2000, the Air Force decided not to exercise all the options and contracted with Boeing to build the first 12 satellites and put the other 15 contracts out for competitive bidding.

The Air Force said to protect Boeing's competitive pricing information, it would only release the rates up through 2004 -- the year the FOIA was filed -- and not those for future years in the contract that extends until 2012. But Boeing said the rates from recent years could be used to predict future rates.

But Kessler said that Boeing did not establish that it would likely suffer substantial competitive harm if the Air Force releases the information from past years.

Boeing declined to comment until it has had more time to review the opinion.