Loral Space and Communications has reached a settlement with the US government, agreeing to pay a fine of $14 million to the State Department over the release of technology data to China.
The company had been accused of providing China with US communications satellite technology data following the launch failure of a Chinese Long March 3B booster in 1996, which resulted in the loss of a Loral-built Intelsat spacecraft.
As part of the launch failure investigation, Loral mistakenly sent an Independent Review Committee report to China which, although it had been censored by the removal of sensitive material, was in contravention of US security regulations. The information could have been used by China to improve the reliability of rocket and missile guidance systems.
Source: Flight International