Builders Escape Most Costs as Navy on the Hook for Warships - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-08/u-s-navy-on-hook-for-most-fixes-on-littoral-ships-gao-finds-iwgfkky6
The U.S. Navy must pay “f_or the vast majority of defects_” on its troubled Littoral Combat Ship, not contractors Lockheed Martin Corp. and Austal Ltd., according to congressional investigators.
The government has to foot the bill because the Navy didn’t require warranties that would force contractors to pay many of the costs, as the U.S. Coast Guard does, the Government Accountability Office said in a statement delivered at a congressional hearing Thursday.
La marine états-unienne passe donc en toute impunité des contrats qui exonèrent le constructeur de toute responsabilité financière en cas de malfaçon…
The contract with Austal to build the Coronado, the fourth vessel built, required that the Navy pay “all the costs to correct all defects,” the GAO said. In August, the Coronado suffered the failure of a part in its propulsion system while in transit from Hawaii to Singapore. A Navy review board identified “shaft misalignment” as a contributing factor that was part of “deficiencies in the ship construction process,” the Navy said last week in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.