Wireless Carriers Pay $138.7 Million to Settle Claims of Overcharging Hundreds of State and Local Entities Under Cooperative Purchasing Contracts
Posted 09/24/20
Contract Non-Compliance
This archive displays posts tagged as relevant to fraud arising from or resulting in non-compliance with government contracts. You may also be interested in the following pages:
September 22, 2020
Contractors Bechtel National Inc., Bechtel Corporation, AECOM Energy & Construction, Inc., and Waste Treatment Completion Company, LLC will pay $57.75 million to resolve claims that they violated the False Claims Act by overbilling the Department of Energy for work on the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant. The investigation was initiated by four whistleblowers who reported overcharging by defendants on craft labor performed by electricians, millwrights, pipefitters, and other skilled trades workers, including billing for unallowable and unreasonable idle time caused by management failures in scheduling work. The whistleblowers will receive $13.75 million from the settlement. USAO ED WASeptember 17, 2020
LexisNexis Coplogic Solutions Inc. agreed to pay $10 million to Florida, which intervened in an action brought by whistleblower Christopher Hood under the Florida False Claims Act alleging that the company was underpaying the state. LexisNexis contracted with the state to provide motor vehicle crash reports to the public for a small fee; a portion of the fee collected by LexisNexis, $10 per report, was to be paid by the company to the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. However, the whistleblower and state alleged that LexisNexis systematically understated the number of reports it sold, thereby underpaying the state. The relator, a former employee of LexisNexis, will receive a whistleblower award of $1.8 million. Fla. Earlier settlementsSeptember 10, 2020
Asphalt contractor Dave O’Mara Contractor, Inc. will pay $4.25 million to resolve claims that in performing and billing for repaving work that was funded in part by the Federal Highway Administration, they falsely represented that they were including steel slag in the asphalt mixture when they were not in fact doing so, increasing the chance that the roads would prematurely deteriorate. DOJ; USAO SD INFor Garlic Powder They Got Maltodextrin
Posted 08/28/20
Cell Phone Carriers - Procurement Fraud ($138.7 million)
Constantine Cannon represented a whistleblower in a series of state False Claims Act cases alleging the four major wireless carriers -- AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile -- overcharged the government by failing to provide services at the lowest cost available as required in their government contracts. In September 2020, the carriers agreed to collectively pay $138.7 million to settle the matter, one of the largest state False Claims Act settlements ever. Our client received a whistleblower award of roughly $55 million. Read more -- LA Times, CBS, PR Newswire, CC.Catch of the Week: Tacoma foundry pays 10.8M settlement over deficient steel parts destined for U.S. Navy submarines, falsified tests
Posted 06/18/20
