- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
State Department said on Wednesday it had charged Hughes Electronics Corp.
and Boeing Co.'s Satellite Systems unit with illegally sharing sensitive
space technology with China in the 1990s that may have helped Beijing fine-tune
its missiles.
-
- The companies, which have long denied any wrongdoing
in the case, were formally charged on Thursday with 123 violations of the
Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations,
said Lou Fintor, a department spokesman.
-
- He said he did not know whether the 123 violations applied
to each of the companies or represented a combined total.
- Boeing and Hughes faced fines of up to $500,000 per charge
and possible bars to getting U.S. export licenses if found guilty of the
charges by a federal administrative judge and later, by a top State Department
official, Fintor said.
-
- Spokesmen for the companies did not return phone calls
about the case, which began with a series of failed space launches in China
starting in January 1995.
-
- But the Washington Post, the first to report on the charges,
quoted Robert Marsocci, a Hughes Electronics spokesman, as saying: "We're
in negotiations with the State Department, and we'll be reviewing our options."
-
- The State Department laid out its allegations in a Dec.
26 "charging letter" that was filed without public notice in
the department's public reading room. The reading room was closed on New
Year's Day.
-
- Hughes officials are alleged to have given China detailed
information about rocketry to help them figure out why their rockets were
failing soon after launch.
-
- Loral Space & Communications Ltd. announced last
January that it agreed to pay $14 million in fines to settle charges that
it had provided sensitive data to China after a Chinese rocket carrying
a Loral satellite blew up in 1996.
-
- Loral neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing but agreed
to pay $14 million in civil fines and spend $6 million over seven years
to improve its compliance procedures.
-
- "The department has had several rounds of discussion
with Hughes and Boeing to explore a resolution similar to the one with
Loral," Fintor said.
-
- "We can note, however, that unlike Loral, Hughes
and Boeing have both failed to recognize the seriousness of the violations
and have been unprepared to take steps to resolve the matter, and to ensure
no recurrence of violations in the future," he said.
-
- Boeing is the top U.S. exporter and the third-biggest
U.S. defense contractor after Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman
Corp.
-
- In 2000, Boeing bought Hughes Electronics' satellite
operations, the outfit alleged to have committed the arms-export violations
with China. Hughes Electronics, the old parent corporation, now describes
itself as the world's leading provider of digital television entertainment.
-
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