By AARON MEHTA
WASHINGTON — South Korea is claiming BAE owes it $43 million in punitive costs over a recently canceled F-16 upgrade program — and BAE is taking the Asian country’s military acquisition arm to court in order to block those charges.
At the core of the lawsuit is a disagreement about who is to blame for unexpected jumps in cost for the F-16 upgrade program.
Military officials in Korea have claimed the US government added about US $470 million and BAE Systems about $280 million in costs that were not part of the original agreement. South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) is holding BAE responsible for those costs; BAE, in turn, argues that it had no say in those cost increases, instead putting the blame at the feet of the US government.
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