"Celanese's new (and timely) natural gas sourcing contract with Southern Methanol (Trinidad) should insulate the company from near-term volatility in that market, and our financial model already anticipates margin pressure in the second half of 2005 as competitors add new capacity in Asia," McCarthy wrote.
They were also denied access to reports concerning what they delicately describe as "sole-source contracts".
Both had awarded "sole source" contracts to Nellcor, which meant that hospitals were given strong financial incentives to buy Nellcor oximeters.
The program, created in 2003, permits federal agencies to set aside a portion of their no-bid or sole-source contracts for small businesses owned by disabled veterans.
The contract regulations were designed to prevent waste and fraud, and they are staunchly defended by members of Congress already upset with abuses of sole-source contracts in Iraq.
The presidential memorandum did not call for an immediate end to sole-source contracts given to companies like Halliburton, an administration official said, but would create guidelines by September that would "drastically reduce" those agreements.
Long-term, single source contracts for these core components are fine if you are willing to accept the risk of being defined by the actions (good and bad) of your partner.
With the Pentagon alone awarding a staggering $140 billion in sole source contracts without any competition in 2010 (up from $50 billion in 2001), we are talking, in former Senator Everett Dirksen's famous formulation, "real money".
Randy Dawson, one of the managing principals of the firm, helped lead Alison Redford's Progressive Conservatives to victory in 2012, but the firm also helped cast a shadow on Redford's troubled tenure when it was revealed that her government had granted two "sole-source" contracts to the firm, which was against government policy.
Neither the funding sources nor author contracts played a role in the study's design, conduct, or reporting or in the decision to submit the article for publication.
