Former Naval Information Warfare Center civilian employee James Soriano and defense contractor Russell Thurston allegedly conspired to commit fraud to the tune of more than $100 million, according to an indictment brought by the U.S. Southern District of California.

The U.S. attorney’s office alleges that Soriano used his position to influence contract decisions that favored the company for which Thurston was working. He and his employees allegedly gave Soriano favors and gifts in exchange for contract sway.

Thurston and his subordinates allegedly gave Soriano free meals at restaurants and a ticket to the 2018 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, as well as “jobs for a family member and friends,” according to a U.S. Justice Department release announcing the indictment.

The pair are charged with conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, and making fraudulent and false statements in tax returns. If convicted, they could face up to 15 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, according to the Feds.

Soriano worked at the Naval Information Warfare Center from 2006 to 2019, during which time he served as “contracting officer representative,” the release said. In that role, he was meant to ensure the integrity of contracting process.

“Soriano instead used his considerable influence to steer lucrative contracts to Russell Thurston of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, who was an executive vice president of a company vying for defense contracts with locations in Arlington, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina,” according to the release. “The company provided technical and consulting services in the information technology field.”

In order to hide evidence of the alleged fraud, Soriano and Thurston “would intentionally delete document properties on procurement documents drafted by employees,” according to the release.

Soriano, required by law to disclose yearly gifts as a government employee, also failed to report any such offerings from Thurston’s company. As a result, he also faces three counts of filing false tax returns.

“This indictment reveals callous greed at the cost of taxpayer dollars,” U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath said in a release announcing this week’s indictment. “This office will vigorously investigate and prosecute fraud that threatens public trust in our institutions.”

Carlos Del Toro said Thursday the Maritime Economic Deterrence Executive Council is needed because other countries have taken steps that threaten the Navy’s technology development and supply chain.

He described “exploiting supply chain vulnerabilities, adversarial capital investments in companies developing technologies that are critical to our fleet and our force” and ongoing “intellectual property theft” as “concerted actions designed to weaken our competitive advantages, not only at sea but on the world’s economic stage.”

The new council is co-chaired by Vice Adm. Francis Morley, the top uniformed advisor to the Navy’s acquisition community, and Chris Diaz, the secretary’s chief of staff, Del Toro said at an Aspen Strategy Group event in New York.

The council includes representation from the research and development community, supply chain and critical infrastructure experts, and intelligence and law enforcement organizations within the Department of the Navy.

Del Toro said this group, using authorities already granted to the department, “will focus on mitigating adversarial foreign investment risks, innovation and technology protection, supply chain integrity initiatives, and the coordination and protection of research efforts across both the government as well as the private sector.”

Morley, speaking at the same event, said the group had an initial meeting to discuss the challenges ahead. He said the meeting made clear each community has been taking its own steps to protect intellectual property, research and supply chains, but that they could accomplish more working in tandem.

Del Toro said the council’s establishment follows other Biden administration efforts to shore up “seams” between the military, the traditional defense industrial base and the innovation sector.

He cited the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act as an early step to ensure American independence in critical technology and manufacturing sectors.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy this month released a 2024 list of critical and emerging technologies with national security importance, including artificial intelligence, hypersonics and quantum information.

And, he added, the Department of Defense last month released its first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy outlining how to modernize the defense sector.

At the same time, a push for advanced defense systems, infrastructure and green products and services offers opportunities for continued growth that can set them up for long-term success.

Here are four strategies government contractors should consider to win business opportunities today.

Update cybersecurity compliance

As cyberattacks become more sophisticated, businesses must continue to build their defenses against them. Highly sensitive government data can be an appealing target for bad actors, so defense contractors must carefully safeguard information by adhering to the DoD’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, or CMMC, program.

In November 2021, the DoD announced CMMC 2.0, which introduced consolidated levels meant to simplify compliance. Although rulemaking isn’t finalized (and timelines for finalization could range from early 2024 through 2025), contractors should familiarize themselves with CMMC 2.0 requirements. For instance, once rules go into effect, level one defense contractors must comply with 17 best practices, such as requiring multifactor authentication for system users.

Companies that want to mitigate risk might consider partnering with a cybersecurity expert that can help them navigate the CMMC compliance process.

Address ongoing supply chain hurdles

Though inflation rates are down from their 2021 and 2022 highs, the financial impacts of the past few years are still echoing across supply chains. Inflated costs associated with shipping, energy, labor and materials significantly impacted government contractors, many of whom were stuck in firm-fixed-price contracts that no longer mirrored the economic reality. As a result, some had to choose between continuing to lose money or withdrawing from the contract.

In early 2022, the General Services Administration, which provides purchasing options for federal agencies, temporarily removed restrictions on economic price adjustments in contracts, and earlier this year, they extended that policy through the end of September 2023.

There’s no guarantee that this moratorium will be extended again, so contractors must work with agency partners to fortify their supply chains and ensure they can continue delivering goods and services.

Carefully weigh M&A

For government contractors, mergers and acquisitions have long been a critical growth strategy, and the increased appetite for technology and defense-related products has created an atmosphere ripe for deals. In 2022 alone, 140 M&As occurred in the government market, and while that number was down from the 190 deals that went through in 2021, it was still higher than the annual average of around 100.

Buyers interested in acquisitions should consider that a higher volume of deals can drive up prices. When considering a deal, buyers need to look at targets’ past performance to assess whether their capabilities are well-aligned and what expansion opportunities exist.

Seize new opportunities

Over the past three years, three pieces of legislation were signed into law to help catalyze the U.S. industrial sector. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS & Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act will collectively inject approximately $2 trillion in federal spending over the next decade—some of which will be used to upgrade or replace aging infrastructure throughout the country.

The scale of this spending may encourage companies that haven’t previously worked as government contractors to throw their hats in the ring. Companies that are a good fit for the job should submit bids, but they need to understand key differences between the public and private sectors.

Some private sector practices—such as passing along increased costs—may be prohibited when dealing with government agencies. Additionally, government work comes with crucial compliance requirements, special rules for communicating and negotiating and other standards.

For some government contractors, an evolving landscape may sound like an exciting challenge worth meeting. By employing these strategies, businesses can realize new ways to build for the future and support government agencies’ important missions.

Edward Spenceley is Senior Vice President and National Government Contracting Specialist at Bank of America Global Banking and Markets

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, is the result of a years-long investigation into Amazon’s businesses and one of the most significant legal challenges brought against the company in its nearly 30-year history.

According to a statement sent by the agency, the Federal Trade Commission and states that joined the lawsuit are asking the court to issue a permanent injunction court that they say would prohibit Amazon from engaging in its unlawful conduct and loosen its “monopolistic control to restore competition.”

They allege the company engages in anti-competitive practices through anti-discounting measures that deter sellers from offering lower prices for products on non-Amazon sites, mirroring allegations made in a separate lawsuit last year by the state of California. The complaint says Amazon can bury listings that are offered at lower prices on other sites.

The complaint also says the company degrades the customer experience by replacing relevant search results with paid advertisements, biasing its own brands over other products it knows to be of a better quality and charging heavy fees that forces sellers to pay nearly half of their total revenues to Amazon.

“The complaint sets forth detailed allegations noting how Amazon is now exploiting its monopoly power to enrich itself while raising prices and degrading service for the tens of millions of American families who shop on its platform and the hundreds of thousands of businesses that rely on Amazon to reach them,” FTC Chairman Lina Khan said in a prepared statement.

Many had wondered whether the agency would seek to a forced break-up of the retail giant, which is also dominant in cloud computing and has a growing presence in other sectors like groceries and health care. In a briefing with reporters, Khan dodged questions of whether that will happen.

“At this stage, the focus is more on liability,” she said.

Some estimates show Amazon controls about 40% of the e-commerce market. A majority of the sales on its platform are facilitated by independent sellers consisting of small and medium-sized businesses and individuals. In return for the access it provides to its platform, Amazon rakes in billions through referral fees and other services like advertising, which makes products sold by sellers more visible on the platform.

The vast majority of third-party merchants also use the company’s fulfillment service to store inventory and ship items to customers. Amazon has been consistently raising fees for those reliant on the program and more recently imposed – and then abandoned- another fee on some who don’t, a move that was blasted by the company’s critics.

Last quarter, Amazon reported $32.3 billion in revenue from third-party services. According to the anti-monopoly organization Institute for Local Self-Reliance, the fees cost U.S. sellers 45% of their revenue in the first half of this year – up from 35% in 2020 and 19% in 2014.

Amazon has also long faced allegations of undercutting businesses that sell on its platform by assessing merchant data and creating its own competing product that it then boosts on the site. In August, the company said it was eliminating some in-house brands that weren’t resonating with customers and would relaunch some items under existing brands like Amazon Basics and Amazon Essentials. Booksellers and authors have also been urging the Department of Justice to investigate what they’ve called Amazon’s “monopoly power over the market for books and ideas.”

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

If successful, a court case could be a big boost for the FTC’s Khan, a Big Tech critic who gained prominence as a Yale law student in 2017 for her scholarly work “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.” In 2021, Amazon had sought to get her recused from agency probes against the company because of her earlier criticism.

Under Khan’s watch, the FTC has aggressively attempted to blunt Big Tech’s influence but has been unsuccessful recently in some of the most high-profile cases, including its bid to block Microsoft’s takeover of the video game maker Activision Blizzard and Meta’s acquisition of the virtual reality startup Within Unlimited. The agency is currently in the middle of a protracted lawsuit against Facebook parent Meta, which it alleges to have engaged in monopolistic behavior. The Justice Department is also challenging Google’s market power in court.

Some of the agency’s allegations in the Amazon case mirrors those made in a separate lawsuit last year by the state of California. A similar case filed by the District of Columbia was thrown out by a federal judge earlier last year and is currently under appeal.

The federal complaint follows other actions the FTC has taken against Amazon in the past few months. In June, the agency sued the company, alleging it was using deceptive practices to enroll consumers into Amazon Prime and making it challenging for them to cancel their subscriptions. Amazon disputes the allegations.

In late May, the company agreed to pay a $25 million civil penalty to settle allegations that it violated a child privacy law and misled parents about data deletion practices on its popular voice assistant Alexa.

Warren and three House Democrats on Sunday sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante seeking more information about the $4.7 billion deal. They wrote that the Pentagon’s “merger review process is a powerful tool to prevent dangerous defense industry consolidation” that could sway antitrust agencies.

Reps. Chris Deluzio, D-Pa., John Garamendi, D-Calif., and Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., also signed onto the letter. All signatories other than Pocan sit on the Armed Services Committee.

“This transaction would threaten competition and national security, increase prices, reduce innovation and reduce product quality and create production delays for the defense-industrial base,” the lawmakers wrote. “We urge the [Defense Department] to carefully review this deal and disclose any identified concerns to the [Federal Trade Commission] and the Department of Justice.”

The two companies announced in December L3Harris would acquire Aerojet, which manufactures solid rocket motors for the Defense Department.

The lawmakers noted that “after years of mergers in the solid rocket motor sector, the number of domestic suppliers has declined from eight to just two: Aerojet and Orbital-ATK.”

The Federal Trade Commission in March asked L3Harris and Aerojet for additional information about the deal.

L3Harris spokeswoman Sara Banda said in a statement the acquisition “will strengthen U.S. national security by affording the [Defense Department] and the warfighter the benefits of a more efficient, flexible and innovative supplier.”

She noted “L3Harris has committed to the [department] to ensure that Aerojet Rocketdyne continues its role as a merchant supplier.”

In a late April earnings call, L3Harris CEO Chris Kubasik said the contractor was gathering data to comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s request for additional information and reiterated that he expects the deal to close this year.

“We do not compete with Aerojet Rocketdyne,” he said on the call. “Plain and simple, they make rocket motors and we do not. … We are not a customer of theirs. They are not a customer of ours.”

The lawmakers, in the new letter, said that should the transaction proceed “L3Harris would be in a position to leverage its control over solid rocket motors and other Aerojet products to force other companies and the United States to purchase its other products, regardless of the impact this would have on price or quality.”

They also asked Austin and LaPlante to respond to a series of questions about the deal by July 21, including what impacts it would have on major defense programs, future costs and supply chains. The lawmakers requested the Pentagon make public any recommendations regarding the acquisition it has made to the Federal Trade Commission or Justice Department.

Lockheed Martin ended its efforts to acquire Aerojet last year. Raytheon Technologies had argued that proposed merger would have forced it to negotiate with Lockheed, a major competitor, over solid rocket motors. Warren also opposed the failed Lockheed-Aerojet merger.

Lockheed Martin has raised concerns about the L3Harris-Aerojet deal to the Defense Department and Federal Trade Commission, Reuters reported last month.

The contract is worth as much as $192 million, the Westminster, Colorado-based company said in a Feb. 8 statement. It includes high-resolution electro-optical imagery as well as synthetic aperture radar products, which uses radar to see through clouds and in dark conditions and detect things like material properties, precise movement and elevation. Maxar will also provide three-dimensional data services.

Commercial satellite imagery is in high demand and its utility for military operations has been on full display in the war in Ukraine. Data from commercial space-based imagery providers is supplementing government-owned space capabilities, providing detailed insights into Russian troop movements.

The contract follows two other awards from NGA, which Maxar announced last month. The first, a $22.5 million contract, is for the agency’s Janus program and will help characterize land cover over areas that haven’t been mapped in the past. Under another $13.3 million deal, the company will provide an interface that NGA can use to better access its commercial imagery archive.

In December, Maxar announced it would be acquired by private equity firm Advent International for $6.4 billion. The deal is expected to close later this year.

The hope extends across 10 years of former Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s distinguished career in defense innovation. While much of Washington still focused on countering terrorism, Ash foresaw China’s rise as the pivotal security challenge. It was an early insight that shaped both the Pentagon and my life significantly.

During the heat of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, I met in Ash’s office. Though frequently discussing missile defense or lasers at the time, he ended that meeting quite seriously. “I want you to go do something about China,” he said. Just that.

But his go-figure-it-out commission pulled me into 10 years of unexpected government service, most of it working for him at the Strategic Capabilities Office — his first of many such organizations.

Reading Donald Rumsfeld’s “snowflake” memos is a fascinating insight into what drove that particular secretary of defense. Ash Carter’s snowflakes are his deputized innovation organizations: the Defense Innovation Board, the Defense Innovation Unit and the Strategic Capabilities Office, among others.

While recently attending SCO’s 10th anniversary, this snowflake’s “report card” was noticeably front and center: 37 classified game-changers being fielded, with nine operational today. An understandable habit: SCO was nearly crushed when top cover shifted in years past. Only compelling metrics helped it survive to later thrive.

More recently, while sitting in the DIB meetings, it was clear “investment snowflakes” will need similar metrics to avoid melting in the post-Carter era.

I discussed this with Ash while on the committee that founded AFWERX, and again while running this Air Force investment arm. Having investors inside a service procurement system, vice bypassing it, required metrics that scream return on investment to procurement executives and warfighters alike. One “screaming” metric for AFWERX was leverage: multiplying purchasing power — typically by four to five — via matching public and private funding on contracts.

Combined with some “hack-quisition” ninjutsu, the Air Force and Space Force bought in and awarded over 2,500 investment contracts, including the large $60 million STRATFIs to startups like Anduril and Shield AI.

Though only one metric, it defended Ash’s bridge between Silicon Valley and a sometimes mercurial Pentagon. Others, like DIU’s creation of U.S. industrial capacity for small drones, replacing ones lost to China, seem part of the bridge defense, too. And just like SCO, strong defense will almost certainly be needed.

Kessel Run is an illustrative example. An Air Force software factory of 1,000 coders and recipient of the Pentagon’s highest acquisition awards, this organization began as a DIB-encouraged, DIU coding project for tanker planning apps.

Highly successful, DIU proved agile software methodology could solve defense problems on commercial timelines. But the app project did not anticipate the needs of a global military operating system, ultimately requiring a major overhaul to support the air operations centers.

I led that post-Carter standup of Kessel Run, approving its acquisition plan and defending it against successive “return-to-waterfall-coding” assaults, including two budget torpedoings. Without our team’s prowess and DIU’s performance data, Kessel Run would never have formed, and along with it, 20 subsequent Air Force and Space Force software factories, including the first enterprise cloud and coding platform. Return-on-investment-screaming metrics matter, especially when top cover gets thin.

Top cover appears thinner on defense innovation these days. With Dr. Carter’s passing, I fear a divided Pentagon on commercial innovation, with increasing antibodies to “tech sis” and “tech bro” companies, including new ways to work with them. This DIB task force is a serendipitous opportunity to look at roles and missions across the defense investment ecosystem, including those of the defense primes, and metrics that scream value for warfighters and taxpayers.

As we wait for the DIB results, my Pentagon experience points to five defense investment principles worth sharing:

Source better opportunities. Warfighters forecast needs based on systems they know and use. Unknown opportunities can often be game-changers, but they’re hard to source in the ever-changing tech ecosystem. Tech scouting, due diligence and early customer development can flip mission prospects.

Leverage addressable market potential. Warfighter dominance is the goal. But in pursuing it, jeopardizing military reuse or commercial dual use kills purchasing power, deals and trust. Such jeopardy takes many forms: overreaching requirements, antiquated regulations, insular acquisitions and gapped funding. The Pentagon is simply more practiced in “.mil” procuring than “.com” partnering. Unlocking the value of the broader addressable market can multiply defense-dollar impacts.

Place bets for portfolio returns. Overspreading development dollars is one of many forces perpetuating the “valley of death.” Like the private sector, defense investors (including laboratories) should place bigger productization bets as the culmination of earlier investment pipeline stages. And this pipeline should have understandable gates between small customer development contracts, larger prototyping and final productization. Today, many companies do not know if they’re on a highway to recurring revenue or a demonstration dead end.

Improve purchasing power. Value will always have a cost component. Investments should have measurable returns, not hand waves to private capital. As defense investment contracts become more important, audits will undoubtedly follow. But quantifying leverage and increased purchasing power is where they can shine.

Manage for long-term trust, not near-term gain. Many companies have a market choice. Making defense appealing means defending the Pentagon’s reputation as a trusted innovation partner, as much as it is a battlefield one.

However the defense innovation report card ends up, defending the bridge Ash built with commercial innovators over 10 years would be a fitting tribute to his legacy, one that lives on in snowflakes and other inspired organizations, all commissioned to “go do something” about the urgent mission of national security.

Will Roper is a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics.

The deal, if approved, would see the country’s only independent solid rocket motor maker bought by the sixth-largest American defense firm, L3Harris, in a deal valued at $4.7 billion. Pending government approvals, the deal is expected to close in 2023.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit in January to block Lockheed’s $4.4 billion takeover of Aerojet because the FTC opposed the prospect of the vertical consolidation. But the newly proposed combination would be horizontal, with no material competitive overlaps, according to former deputy undersecretary of defense for industrial affairs Jeff Bialos.

“This will have a considerably easier time than the Lockheed-Aerojet deal,” said Bialos, now co-chair of global law firm Eversheds-Sutherland’s aerospace, defense and security group.

Though Lockheed said it would have allowed Aerojet to continue as a merchant supplier of propulsion equipment to the entire industry, the FTC’s complaint against the deal alleged Lockheed had previously tried to sway Aerojet against selling its wares to rival firms.

Bialos, who has previously represented both L3Harris and Aerojet, said L3Harris should be helped by its track record as a merchant supplier of various technologies.

“It remains to be seen whether the regulatory agencies would give much cognizance to that, but I think the Defense Department would take that seriously because the history is there,” Bialos said. “According to the FTC, there was no merchant supplier mentality at Lockheed.”

L3Harris is banking that regulators will approve the deal, according to the public terms. If the government is not satisfied by the deal and it’s scuttled, L3Harris would have to pay Aerojet a $406 million “reverse-breakup” fee.

“They are making a bet,” Bialos said of L3Harris.

The two companies, in their announcement, say the deal offers the country a “strengthened merchant supplier.”

“We’ve heard the Defense Department leadership loud and clear: they want high-quality, innovative and cost-effective solutions to meet both current and emerging threats, and they’re relying upon a strong, competitive industrial base to deliver those solutions,” L3Harris Chairman and CEO Chris Kubasik said in the statement.

A key opponent of the Lockheed’s takeover bid, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, said she would be scrutinizing Aerojet’s new plans to be acquired.

“Further corporate consolidation in the American defense industry raises both antitrust issues and national security concerns. As a Senate Armed Services Committee member, I opposed Aerojet’s previous failed deal and continue to closely monitor antitrust enforcement against defense contractors,” Warren said in a statement.

The antitrust advocacy group American Economic Liberties Project on Monday equated the new deal to the Lockheed deal, saying it would be unwelcome consolidation.

“It’s a case of deja vu,” the group’s national security director, Lucas Kunce, said in a news release. “Antitrust enforcers did the right thing last time, blocking an acquisition of Aerojet by a major prime contractor, and they should do it again. To create the competition that the warfighter and the taxpayer desperately need, we should be talking about break-ups, not acquisitions.”

The Biden administration has indicated that it would subject mergers to a “heightened review” in a report that came out earlier this year, so this deal will likely be carefully screened, according to Cynthia Cook, of the defense-industrial initiatives group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“That said, every deal is different,” Cook said. “This merger should not trigger the same concerns as the failed Lockheed Martin takeover, as this looks more like a move toward increased diversification for L3Harris rather than one representing increased consolidation for a particular sector.”

L3Harris would gain a rocket motor supplier amid an “explosion in missile production demand,” driven by aid to Ukraine’s fight to repel Russia, U.S. arms transfers to NATO allies and Taiwan, and increases in Army, Navy and Air Force spending on long-range fires in a potential China fight, analyst Jim McAleese, of McAleese and Associates, said in a note Monday.

The transaction would further L3Harris’s efforts to “enter adjacent markets in big bites,” while letting Aerojet stay mostly intact and gain access to capital for future opportunities, according to Brett Lambert, a former Pentagon industrial policy official in the Obama administration, now with the Densmore Group consultancy firm.

Those capitol opportunities come as as Aerojet is facing a more competitive landscape, with several startups ― X-Bow Systems, Estes Energetics, Firehawk Aerospace and Adranos ― entering its corner of the market, said analyst Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners.

For Wall Street, it’s an open question whether L3Harris will be able to sustain its profit margins and invest at a level that will allow Aerojet to stay ahead of new players, Callan said.

Cowen Washington Research Group’s Roman Schweizer and Gautam Khanna said in a note to investors Monday they “expect a thorough but quick FTC review” and “expect approval but concede the current FTC is anti-consolidation.”

Ahead of the Pentagon’s budget release next year, Cowen forecasts Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will drive a 46% increase in Pentagon spending across more than two dozen major weapons and munitions programs through 2027. Nine contain rocket motor content from Aerojet, a key component and rocket motor supplier to Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon ― which helps make Aerojet an attractive purchase.

“Aerojet has key [intellectual property] and manufacturing capabilities for solid- and liquid-fueled rocket for space launch, hypersonics, missile defense and strike weapons (all of which we believe will grow equal/better than DoD’s top line),” Schweizer and Khanna said.

The move comes after Lockheed Martin ended its acquisition effort in February.

L3Harris, which is the United States’ sixth-largest defense company, said it would pay $58 per share in an all-cash deal to acquire the defense contractor, which specializes in propulsion systems and energetics. Aerojet, which generates about $2.3 billion in annual revenue, has facilities in California, Arkansas, Florida, Alabama and Washington, among other states.

Two years ago, Lockheed announced it would acquire Aerojet, but the deal quickly drew controversy. Raytheon Technologies publicly objected, saying the transaction would force it to negotiate with Lockheed, a major competitor, for solid-rocket motors.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also questioned the deal and called for the Federal Trade Commission to examine it.

In early 2022, the FTC announced a lawsuit that sought to block the proposed $4.4 billion merger on antitrust grounds. The agency said it was concerned the deal would hurt competition in the defense industry by allowing Lockheed to cut off other contractors from vital missile components Aerojet provides, particularly scramjet engines for hypersonic missiles and control systems for missile interceptors.

Weeks later, Lockheed announced it would no longer seek to acquire Aerojet. In a statement, Jim Taiclet, Lockheed’s chief executive, said the company “determined that in light of the FTC’s actions, terminating the transaction is in the best interest of our stakeholders.”

L3Harris has dramatically reshaped itself in recent years. In 2019, L3 Technologies and Harris Corp. merged into what became the ninth-largest defense firm in the world at the time. The year before, L3 Technologies ranked 18th, and Harris Corp. ranked 26th.

The combined company, with $14.9 billion in 2021 defense revenue, was the 10th largest defense firm in this year’s rankings. Aerojet’s nearly $1.5 billion in defense revenue put the company at 65th place on this year’s Defense News Top 100 list.

In its announcement Sunday, L3Harris and Aerojet said the deal “will ensure the defense industrial base and our customers will have a strengthened merchant supplier to effectively address both current and emerging threats — and promote scientific discovery and innovation — through targeted investment in advanced missile technologies, hypersonics and more.”

The deal is slated to close in 2023 and requires regulatory approvals.

Stephen Losey contributed to this report.

Under the terms of the agreement, Advent will acquire all outstanding Maxar common stock for $53 per share, a 129% premium over the closing price on Dec. 15, the last full trading day on the New York Stock Exchange prior to the announcement.

As a private company, Maxar will accelerate investments in satellite technologies and data insights used by government and commercial customers, as well as pursue acquisitions, it said in a statement. This includes supporting the delivery of the company’s Legion satellite constellation, accelerating the launch of Legion 7 and 8 satellites and expanding its Earth Intelligence and Space Infrastructure businesses through investments in capabilities such as advanced machine learning and 3D mapping.

“Advent has a proven record of strengthening its portfolio companies and a desire to support Maxar in advancing our long-term strategic objectives,” Maxar CEO Daniel Jablonsky said in the statement. “As a private company, we will have enhanced flexibility and additional resources to build on Maxar’s strong foundation, further scale operations and capture the significant opportunities in a rapidly expanding market.”

With some $28 billion invested across the defense, security and cybersecurity sectors in the last three years, Boston-based Advent’s portfolio companies support many satellite and defense platforms which serve the U.S. government and its allies as well as companies across the globe. The firm said it arranged debt and equity financing commitments to finance the acquisition.

The transaction is expected to close mid-2023, subject to customary closing conditions. Maxar, which has 4,400 employees, will operate under the same brand and maintain its headquarters in Westminster, Colorado, and will remain U.S.-controlled and operated.