AEROSPACE & DEFENSE

U.S. May Settle With A-12 Contractors: The government is willing to talk settlement with McDonnell Douglas Corp. and General Dynamics Corp. over the canceled contract for the A-12 jet fighter. Federal attorneys had balked last fall at the contractors’ call to settle their $3-billion lawsuit against the government over the largest program ever canceled by the Pentagon. But in documents filed this week in the U.S. Claims Court, Assistant Atty. Gen. Stuart Gerson and Gerald Cann, assistant Navy secretary, said, “An early resolution of this litigation may well serve the public interest.” The two firms filed the suit last June, challenging the Navy’s cancellation of the A-12 and its demand that the contractors return $1.34 billion for uncompleted work.