Halliburton's KBR: Bill Problems Fade Soon

US oil service corporation Halliburton's engineering and construction subsidiary KBR expects its dispute of bills for feeding of U.S. troops in Iraq to be settled soon.
A senior KBR executive Alfred Neffgen said on Tuesday, ?We expect a decision in the not too distant future".
About $160 million in payments has been withheld for the under the food services agreement in KBR's contract with the Pentagon, pending a decision on possible overcharges by the Army Materiel Command (AMC).

The company could also face a 15 percent reduction in ongoing payments under the food service contract if the AMC determines KBR overbilled, as a Pentagon auditor has alleged.

Neffgen said the Defense Contract Audit Agency, which audited the bills, took a single sentence from the contract that specified KBR would need to count the troops served by its food service operations and decided that payments would be based on those headcounts, what was mistakable.
KBR is in charge of 64 dining facilities in the region, which are mostly operated by subcontractors. KBR has said it would cut payments to those subcontractors if its government payments were reduced.

Neffgen said the DCAA was applying U.S.-style standards to contracted work that was done under extremely tight deadlines in a war zone. "They are taking a myopic view of the contract," Neffgen said.