Reply #3: Titan Competing With Northrop, L-3 to Keep Its Largest Contract [View All]

[maddezmom]

June 7 (Bloomberg) -- Titan Corp. is being challenged by Northrop Grumman Corp. and L-3 Communications Holdings for a contract to provide linguists to the U.S. Army in Iraq that is its biggest source of revenue.

Titan was awarded the five-year, $657 million contract in 1999. Last year, it accounted for 7 percent of the company's sales of $1.78 billion. On June 15, the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command will decide whether the next five-year worldwide translation contract, worth up to $2.5 billion, will go to Titan or another company.

For Titan, the timing of the competition could hardly be worse. In a report sent to Congress last month by U.S. Army General Antonio Taguba, at least one Titan employee was linked to abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. In March, the U.S. suspended 10 percent of Titan's pay for the translation work after an audit found inadequate documentation of its bills.

``The military needs to act like a client in any other industry would,'' said Peter Singer, a national security fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. ``To ensure proper competition, good oversight and management, you need to have in place the same sort of punishment mechanisms as in the free market.''

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http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=afR4zWgUnpDo&refer=us