Nothrop Grumman Corporation, the Pentagon’s third largest supplier, has agreed to pay $12.5 million to the United States government to settle claims that it failed to properly test commercial parts it supplied for navigation in warplanes, submarines and space equipment.

The Justice Department, spurred by a Northrop quality assurance manager turned whistleblower, the government alleged Northrop’s Navigation Systems business unit failed to make sure the electronics would work at the temperature extremes required for military and space uses, according to a statement released Wednesday. The department said Northrop’s misconduct affected the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force, Defense Logistics Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Coast Guard, and the Forest Service.

The settlement resolved claims made in a qui tam lawsuit filed in May 2006 against Northrop in the United States District Court for the Central District of California by Allen Davis. Davis was a quality assurance manager at Northrop’s Navigation Systems Division facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. He alleged that Northrop failed to comply with testing requirements laid out in a November 1998 protocol for the use of commercial parts in military systems. After an investigation, the United States alleged the failures to test continued from November 1998 until February 2007.

Davis sill receive $2,375,000 of the settlement under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act.

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