Sanctions on Boeing Could End

A Pentagon ban on Boeing Co. receiving new rocket launch contracts could soon be lifted, according to a report published Tuesday.

Citing an unnamed senior Air Force official, the Wall Street Journal said the Air Force intended to hold a competition this year between Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp. for launch contracts worth as much as $4 billion.

An Air Force public affairs officer reached late Tuesday said she was unable to comment on the report. Boeing spokesman Dan Beck said he had no knowledge of the Air Force’s plans.

Chicago-based Boeing has been barred from competing for launch contracts since July 2003, in the wake of an ethics scandal.

The Air Force took about $1 billion in launch contracts away from Boeing and barred it from further launch business after investigators determined that the company in the late ‘90s illicitly obtained trade secrets from rival Lockheed. In 1998, Boeing defeated Lockheed in a bidding contest for the Air Force’s rocket launch business.

Separately, former Boeing Chief Financial Officer Michael Sears is scheduled to be sentenced next week in a federal criminal case stemming from his role in a conflict-of-interest case involving former Air Force and Boeing official Darleen Druyun.

Boeing and Lockheed, of Bethesda., Md., are the only providers of the large rockets used to lift government communications, spy and weather satellites into orbit.