Bribery and Bid-Rigging

Korean Oil Companies - Procurement Fraud/Bid-Rigging ($363 million)

Constantine Cannon represented a whistleblower in a False Claims Act case alleging several Korean oil and transportation companies engaged in a bid-rigging scheme to artificially inflate the price the US military paid for fuel contracts for its bases in South Korea.  Ultimately, five different entities paid a total of $363 million: In November 2018, SK Energy, GS Caltex, and Hanjin Transportation agreed to pay $246 million to resolve both criminal and civil claims; and in March 2019, Hyundai Oilbank and S-Oil Corporation agreed to pay $127 million to resolve both criminal and civil claims.  The settlements represent the largest False Claims Act antitrust recovery ever.  Our client received a whistleblower award of roughly $37 million.  Read more -- WSJ, Reuters, Stars and Stripes, DOJ, CC.

October 4, 2019

Zaldy Sabino, formerly a contracting officer with the U.S. State Department, has been convicted of charges related to contracting fraud.  Sabino received hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from the owner of a construction firm in Turkey that had multiple multi-million dollar contracts with the State Department.  Sentencing is set for February, 2020.  DOJ

September 26, 2019

A military contractor who previously plead guilty to accepting illegal kickbacks and committing wire fraud has been sentenced to over 2 years in prison and ordered to pay $1.4 million in restitution.  Despite being the true owner of Walsh Construction Services, LLC, James Conway concealed his ownership by signing contracts under Keith Walsh, a fictitious name.  He then used Walsh Construction to bill for $1.4 million of work the contractor purportedly performed at Picatinny Arsenal and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, as well as collect on $180,345 of kickbacks from four subcontractors.  In addition to the prison term and restitution order, Conway was sentenced to three years of supervised release.  USAO NJ

September 19, 2019

Following his conviction at trial in September 2018, Azam Doost, the owner of a marble mining company in Afghanistan, has been sentenced to 4.5 years in prison, and ordered to pay $8.9 million in forfeiture and restitution to the government.  Doost had been convicted for his role in fraudulently obtaining and failing to repay a $15.8 million loan from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a U.S. government agency, to Equity Capital Mining LLC, which Doost owned at the time.  DOJ

May 15, 2019

Robert C. Leonard, CEO of Force Multiplier Solutions, has been ordered to pay $125 million in restitution for his part in a bribery scheme which took down public officials and brought about the collapse of Dallas County Schools. Mr. Leonard pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and was sentenced to seven years in federal prison.  DOJ

May 1, 2019

Michael S. Flynn of Bridgeport, Connecticut, pleaded guilty to charges arising from his role in rigging bids on contracts to install insulation at construction projects for universities, hospitals, and other public and private entities in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts.  Flynn owned and ran an insulation contractor, an conspired with competitors to fix prices and submit bids that inflated customer costs by at least 10%, costing victims more than $45 million in total.  Flynn faces up to 30 years in prison.  DOJ

May 1, 2019

An Alaska Native Corporation that qualified for the Small Business Administration’s set aside contracts has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a whistleblower’s allegations that it paid kickbacks to obtain said contracts.  According to a qui tam complaint by Susann Campbell, Kikiktagruk Inupiat Corporation (KIC), and its subsidiary, KIC Development LLC (KICD), paid bribes to a contract employee with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers in order to obtain preferential treatment and confidential government information to ensure it won a construction contract at the military’s Ft. Bliss installation in Texas.  USAO WDTX