SAIC Says Greek Government Has Finally Accepted $322 Million Athens Olympics Project

It might have won a gold medal for longest-running contract dispute. Finally, though, it’s over—or so it seems. San Diego defense contractor SAIC said yesterday the Greek government has formally accepted the sophisticated “command and control” security network the company installed for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games. The company also known as Science Applications International Corp. said the price tag for its marathon installation is approximately $322 million.

Troubles with the contract prompted the secretive research and engineering conglomerate to postpone its IPO from December 2005 until October 2006. Negotiations to resolve the dispute dragged on for years, and even yesterday’s announcement was puzzling.

The Greek government, which refused to pay for the project until SAIC fixed technical problems, publicly announced it was satisfied with the work in March 2007. Perhaps that was just a negotiating tactic. SAIC declined comment at that time, saying it had not seen documents. The company remained silent about the issue until yesterday.

In its announcement yesterday, SAIC said the Command, Control, Communications, Coordination and Integration system was designed to address the public safety and security needs of the Greek police, fire brigades, coast guard and ambulance service.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.