Northrop Grumman (NOC) Risk Analysis

U.S. government contractors (including their subcontractors and others with whom they do business) must comply with various specific procurement laws, regulations, rules and other legal requirements. If we are found to have violated any such requirements, or are found not to have acted responsibly, we may be subject to a wide array of actions, including contract modifications or termination, payment withholds, the loss of export/import privileges, administrative, civil or criminal judgments or penalties (including convictions, agreements, fines, damages and non-monetary relief), or suspension or debarment. Additionally, these various legal requirements, although sometimes customary in government contracting, increase costs and risks and have been and are evolving at a significant pace, which further increases costs and risks. The costs are not always fully recoverable. New laws or other requirements, or changes to existing ones (including, for example, related to cybersecurity, information and data protection, cost accounting, environment, sustainability, securities, competition, compensation costs, employment, taxes, counterfeit parts, pensions, use of certain non-US equipment or acquisitions more broadly), can significantly increase our costs (including compliance costs) and risks, create operational challenges, potentially limit our ability to return cash to shareholders, reduce our profitability and/or adversely affect our competitiveness. Such risks may increase as a result of new regulations or executive orders (such as the recent executive order applicable to government defense contractors, which seeks, among other things, to address underperformance and insufficient prioritization of government contracts, insufficient investment in production and production speed, as well as limit share repurchases and dividends by government defense contractors), different interpretations in how government agencies construe existing requirements, or government agencies taking positions that represent changes from historical practices. In addition, changes in priorities and government actions with respect to defense contracting have led to increased uncertainty regarding such risks, including as a result of uncertainty regarding the impact and implementation of recent executive orders. We operate in a highly regulated environment and are routinely audited and reviewed by the U.S. government and its agencies, such as the DCAA, Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) and the DoW Inspector General. These agencies review performance under our contracts, our cost structure and accounting, our compliance, and the adequacy of our systems in meeting government requirements. Costs ultimately found to be unallowable or improperly allocated are generally not reimbursed or require us to refund the customer. If an audit uncovers improper or illegal activities, we could be subject to possible civil and criminal penalties, sanctions, or suspension or debarment. Whether or not illegal activities are alleged, the U.S. government has the ability to decrease or withhold certain payments when it deems systems to be inadequate, with significant financial impact, regardless of the ultimate outcome. As a result of such actions, we may be subject to increased scrutiny, identified for enforcement action, and/or required to engage in remediation efforts, any or all of which could damage our reputation, increase our costs (including compliance costs) and risks, create operational challenges, and/or adversely affect our competitiveness. In addition, we risk serious reputational harm in situations involving allegations of impropriety made against us or our business partners. Our industry has experienced, and we expect it will continue to experience, significant changes to business practices globally, in part as a result of changes in the global security and threat environment and an increased focus on affordability, efficiencies, business systems, recovery of costs and a reprioritization of available defense funds. We have experienced and may continue to experience an increased number of audits and challenges to our claims and our business systems for current and past years, as well as longer periods to close audits, broader requests for information and an increased risk of withholdings of payments. The U.S. government has been pursuing and may continue to pursue policies that could negatively impact our profitability, including those that shift additional responsibility, cost and performance risks to the contractor.