On Monday, a federal appeals court overturned a December ruling that would have given the DoD a siphon pump to use on Boeing's and General Dynamics' bank accounts.

The decision, over the canceled A-12 ship-based stealth bomber program, may someday come to closure. The program was canceled nearly a dozen years ago by then-SecDef (now Vice President) Dick Cheney, due to cost overruns and missed milestones.

The court, though, says it does not have sufficient records to make a final decision; the Court of Federal Claims, the appeals court said, had not done its job of determining whether the Navy had pulled out of the program properly.
 
"...we have no choice but to vacate the trial court's judgment and remand for further proceedings," the court wrote in its decision.

After a litigious year in 2002, the DoD said it would just start deducting $2.3 billion from its payments to General Dynamics and Boeing, since the negotiations weren't going its way. (That figure includes about $1 billion in interest, that the Navy figures the contractors owe.)

FMI: www.defenselink.mil, www.boeing.com, www.generaldynamics.com