L3Harris Technologies, Inc. is an American technology company, defense contractor, and information technology services provider that produces products for command and control systems, wireless equipment, tactical radios, avionics and electronic systems, night vision equipment, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C3ISR) systems and products, ocean systems, instrumentation, navigation products, training devices and services, and both terrestrial/spaceborne antennas for use in the government, defense, and commercial sectors. The company was formed from the merger of L3 Technologies and Harris Corporation on June 29, 2019, which made it the sixth-largest defense contractor in the United States.
History
L3 Technologies and Harris Corporation
The "Harris Automatic Press Company" was founded by Alfred S. Harris in Niles, Ohio, in 1895. The company spent the next 60 years developing lithographic processes and printing presses before acquiring typesetting company Intertype Corporation. In 1967, they merged with Radiation, Inc. of Melbourne, Florida, a developer of antenna, integrated circuit, and modem technology used in the space race. The company headquarters was moved from Cleveland to Melbourne in 1978. In May 2015, Harris finalized the purchase of competitor Exelis Inc., almost doubling the size of the original company. L-3 Communications was formed in 1997 to acquire certain business units from Lockheed Martin that had previously been part of Loral Corporation. These units had belonged to Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta, which had merged three years before in 1993. The company was founded by, and named for, Frank Lanza and Robert LaPenta in partnership with Lehman Brothers. Lanza and LaPenta had both served as executives at Loral and Lockheed. The company continued to expand through mergers and acquisitions to become one of the top ten U.S. government contractors. At the end of 2016, the company changed its name from L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. to L3 Technologies, Inc. to better reflect the company's wider focus since its founding in 1997. Between 1999 and August 2021, L3Harris and predecessors spent $131.9 million lobbying for radio procurement for ICE and CBP ($20,000), the Intelligence Authorization Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and Defense appropriations ($1,510,000), DHS fund appropriations for unmanned vehicles ($430,000), and night vision systems research ($20,000). In 2008, 72 Iraqi civilians sued L3 Services for human rights violations they had endured at Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq, including "torture; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; war crimes; assault and battery; sexual assault and battery; intentional infliction of emotional distress; negligent hiring and supervision; and negligent infliction of emotional distress." A settlement was reached on October 10, 2012, which was the "first positive resolution to a U.S. civil case challenging detainee treatment outside the United States in the larger 'war on terror' context". In 2012, L3 subsidiary KDI Precision Products participated in the sale of 11,500 JDAM bomb fuzes to Israel, part of a $647 million contract deal. These were among the weapons used by the IDF in the 2014 Gaza War; the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights highlighted the IDF's weapons usages, which included attacks on densely populated civilian areas, as constituting potential war crimes.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
