The Nation - News from May 3, 1987

Pentagon auditors will check the books of the nation’s 300 largest defense contractors to determine whether the firms collected more than $1 billion in unwarranted charges, it was reported. Spot surveys of defense accounting systems used by eight companies uncovered overcharges of “hundreds of millions” of dollars over a five-year period, Defense Department auditor Phillip Rogers said, according to a report in Knight-Ridder Newspapers. The excess charges were reportedly collected through such methods as double-billing for spare parts, inflating prices and charging for costs that should have been borne by the suppliers.