Trw Inc

In one of the nation's largest settlements in a whistle-blower case, Northrop Grumman Corp. has agreed to pay the federal government $325 million to resolve claims that TRW, which it acquired in 2002, provided defective parts for a spy satellite program in the 1990s.

In the staid and often chummy world of defense contractors, hostile takeover attempts such as Northrop Grumman Corp.'s bid for TRW Inc. are rare occurrences. A friendly handshake to complete a deal is typical in the industry, where most chief executives not only know each other but have worked with each other on government programs and try to avoid confrontations.

A construction company executive has admitted authorizing kickbacks to building managers at TRW's Redondo Beach facility so his firm could pad expenses that were passed on to the federal government, prosecutors said Wednesday. Jeffrey W. Bochesa, 43, vice president of Bob Parrett Construction Co. of Westminster, entered a guilty plea earlier this week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., to a charge of conspiring to defraud the government.

Northrop Grumman Corp.'s offer Friday to acquire TRW Inc. for $47 a share, or about $5.9 billion, is just the first round of what could become a protracted bidding war that could see competing suitors offering as much as $58 a share, analysts and investment bankers said.

TRW Inc. won the largest satellite production contract in its history Friday, a $6.5-billion program to build the nation's primary weather-monitoring system for joint military and civil use. The 15-year contract--jointly awarded by the Defense and Commerce departments and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration--is the latest key win for TRW's burgeoning space and electronics unit, which employs 8,700 in Redondo Beach.

Richard Bagley doesn't sound like someone who just hit the jackpot. Last week, he became one of the nation's wealthiest whistle-blowers when Northrop Grumman Corp. agreed to settle a case he and the Justice Department brought against TRW Inc., and the department awarded him $27.2 million. In all, Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman, which recently acquired TRW, agreed to pay $111.2 million to resolve claims that TRW padded bills for defense work done in the early 1990s.

A man was shot in the face by a TRW employee Thursday morning in a company parking lot in Redondo Beach, authorities said. Angel Colon, 39, of Torrance was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after allegedly shooting Jose Solis, 46, of Hawthorne during an altercation. Colon is a programmer at the aerospace and defense firm. Solis and Colon had had an ongoing argument over whether Colon was having a relationship with Solis' wife, who also works at TRW, officials said.

TRW said Wednesday that a substantial reduction in funding on some of its classified military programs will force it to lay off about 200 to 300 workers at its Space & Defense Sector in Redondo Beach, a signal that the Pentagon's "black" programs may be under increasing budget pressure.

TRW Inc. agreed to pay $48.5 million to settle retirees' lawsuits alleging the second-largest maker of automobile air bags mishandled pension payments to more than 5,500 former employees. Under the agreement, retired TRW workers will drop claims that the industrial parts maker illegally miscalculated lump-sum payments for 10 years starting in 1986. The agreement was to be presented Tuesday to U.S. District Judge Ann Aldrich in Cleveland, said Robert Gary, an attorney for retired TRW workers.

TRW Inc.'s credit reporting and real estate information division, a major Orange County employer that collects and distributes financial data on millions of Americans, is being sold for $1.1 billion to a private investment group. The deal, announced Friday by the division's Cleveland-based parent, apparently followed a campaign by frustrated executives to win their freedom from TRW, which they felt was ignoring the information division's potential.

In one of the nation's largest settlements in a whistle-blower case, Northrop Grumman Corp. has agreed to pay the federal government $325 million to resolve claims that TRW, which it acquired in 2002, provided defective parts for a spy satellite program in the 1990s.

Richard Bagley doesn't sound like someone who just hit the jackpot. Last week, he became one of the nation's wealthiest whistle-blowers when Northrop Grumman Corp. agreed to settle a case he and the Justice Department brought against TRW Inc., and the department awarded him $27.2 million. In all, Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman, which recently acquired TRW, agreed to pay $111.2 million to resolve claims that TRW padded bills for defense work done in the early 1990s.

In one of the nation's largest whistle-blower settlements, Northrop Grumman Corp. said Monday that it would pay the federal government $111.2 million to resolve claims that TRW Inc., which it recently acquired, padded bills for defense work done in the early 1990s. The agreement ends a nine-year legal fight initiated by Richard Bagley, a former chief financial officer for TRW's Redondo Beach unit. Bagley alleged that TRW overcharged the Pentagon for work on several space electronics programs.

A lawsuit by a longtime critic of the nation's controversial antimissile defense system was dismissed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles after government attorneys argued that the case could jeopardize national security. The 7-year-old suit, brought by former TRW Inc.

Shareholders approved Northrop Grumman Corp.'s purchase of TRW Inc. for $7 billion Wednesday, creating a defense behemoth that will make everything from aircraft carriers and spy satellites to White House Web sites and translation programs for Balkan languages. In sheer size, Northrop will be rivaled only by Lockheed Martin Corp., the nation's largest defense contractor.

Northrop Grumman Corp. said Tuesday that it reached agreement with the Justice Department about its satellite business, thus clearing the way for its $7-billion purchase of TRW Inc. pending shareholders' approval today. The Century City-based defense contractor said it had agreed "on essential terms of a consent decree" with the federal agency that would assure that the Northrop-TRW merger would not impede "fair and open competition" in the electronic satellite payload business.

On Wednesday, if all goes as planned, shareholders will approve Northrop Grumman Corp.'s $7-billion purchase of TRW Inc., which will culminate a decade of dazzling deal-making for Northrop's longtime chairman, Kent Kresa. Shortly after what many consider to be his greatest acquisition, the 64-year-old Kresa is expected to announce his retirement and turn over the helm to Ronald D.

Northrop Grumman Corp. plans to complete its $7.8-billion takeover of TRW Inc. on Dec. 11 and doesn't expect the government will require the sale of any businesses. Based on a draft of a consent decree with the Justice Department, executives of Century City-based Northrop believe they have Defense Department clearance for the deal and that the decree will be finalized in time to allow shareholder votes on the deal Dec. 11. Northrop Grumman fell 14 cents to $98.06 and TRW rose 2 cents to $52.

Hoping to speed up regulatory approval of its proposed $7.8-billion purchase of TRW Inc., Northrop Grumman Corp. has been talking to the Justice Department about signing a consent decree that would satisfy a key anti-competitive concern with the merger, a source close to the talks said Friday.

Northrop Grumman Corp. won Defense Department backing for its $11.8-billion purchase of TRW Inc., probably assuring that the sale would receive antitrust approval, people familiar with the matter said. The acquisition would give Northrop about $2 billion a year in Pentagon contracts. Century City-based Northrop has scheduled a shareholder vote on the transaction Dec. 11. Northrop shares rose $4, or 4.4%, to $96 on the New York Stock Exchange, where TRW shares rose $2.53, or 5.2%, to $50.79.