EDS said yesterday: The SEC has obtained testimony and information in late 2003 and additional information in 2004, including a request for information relating to recent developments regarding the company’s Navy contract.

A spokesperson for EDS confirmed that the request was for information relating to the $559m write-down the company recorded in its fourth quarter, which came about due to a restructuring of the deal that traded long-term value against short-term costs.

EDS’s statement yesterday is also apparently meant to clarify misconceptions arising from chief executive Michael Jordan’s published comments last week, when he told a Reuters conference he’d heard nothing from the SEC since October.

There appears to be no major issues that we are aware of, Reuters quoted Jordan as saying on Thursday. Last we heard was October, it’s one of those things in this day and age that just kind of meanders onward.

The Navy deal is but one component of ongoing SEC investigations into the services giant. The formal inquiry was first disclosed publicly in January 2003, and the Navy deal became a public focus in May.

EDS won the deal to create the Navy Marine Corp Intranet (NMCI) in 2000, beating off a shortlist that included IBM, CSC and General Dynamics. The deal had an estimated value of $6.9bn over seven years, the largest Federal IT services contract ever.

But the NMCI deal has been a visible thorn in EDS’s side since October 2002, when the company first alerted investors that the project was creating substantial up-front costs without generating any cash flow.

In June last year, incoming CEO Jordan lumped the NMCI deal in with about 30 others he said had problems due to insufficient due diligence, delivery-related issues, contract language issues, and assumptions in field evaluations.

In early February this year, the company wrote down $559m related to a restructuring of the contract that helped the company record a loss for the fourth quarter of 2003 of $354m and a full-year loss of $1.7bn.

The company said the write-down was offset by the benefits of having a stabilized Navy deal. Chief financial officer Robert Swan said the restructuring would trade off long-term economics in exchange for lower operational and financial risk.

This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire