Penalty for breaking Northrop's B-21 contract is '$300 million'

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/penalty-for-breaking-northrops-b-21-contract-is-3-422960/

Penalty for breaking Northrop's B-21 contract is '$300 million'
09 March, 2016
BY: James Drew

The US Air Force says it would cost the US government upward of $300 million to breaks its cost-plus contract with Northrop Grumman to develop the B-21 strategic bomber.

It might then take “20 to 30 months” to hold another competition between Northrop and the losing Boeing/Lockheed Martin team to secure the "fixed-price" development contract that outspoken Senator John McCain and other US lawmakers want.

USAF military deputy for acquisition Lt Gen Arnold Bunch was pressed on the matter several times during a Senate hearing on 8 March, since the "taxpayer" would have to pay any cost overruns Northrop might incur during the development phase. Northrop, however, will receive pay incentives if it meets or beats cost and schedule targets.

The ranking member of the Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee Joe Manchin says past cost-plus contracts that overran their cost and schedule targets, namely the Northrop B-2 and Lockheed Martin F-35 and F-22, have left “such a bad taste in everybody's mouth” and are “not real popular here”.