Government Contract Cases

Virginia-based Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. (HII), the only U.S. defense contractor capable of building nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, will pay $7.9 million to complete a $9.2 million settlement that resolves False Claims Act allegations that it overbilled the government for work on both Navy and Coast Guard ships.
According to the allegations first brought forward by whistleblower Byran Faulkner, Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. has been mischarging and overbilling the...

Florida-based Advanced C4 Solutions, Inc. agreed pay $4.535 million to resolve claims that it violated the federal False Claims Act by knowingly overbilling the government for work performed under an Air Force technology contract at Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews.

Defendants Andrew Bennett and James Shank pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to Department of Justice information.

Feds Say Contractors Charge U.S. For Nonexistent Labor Hours, Ineligible Job Rates

The settlement agreement stems from alleged activities beginning in June 2010, when the U.S. Navy’s Space and Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) granted Advanced C4 Solutions a contract titled “DO 27” to perform labor and project management services for an Air Force technology project....

Sierra Nevada Corporation has agreed to pay the U.S. $14.9 million to resolve allegations that it violated the federal False Claims Act by knowingly misclassifying direct and manufacturing costs as research and development costs for NASA and U.S. Department of Defense contracts. The cost misclassifications resulted in the U.S. paying Sierra Nevada Corporation exaggerated overhead rates, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

Sierra Nevada Corp Misclassifies Direct and Manufacturing Costs – Boosts Overhead Rates

The Sparks, Nevada-headquartered corporation provides services to United States agencies through a number of contracts with NASA, the U.S. military and private spaceflight companies, recently taking on the construction of the NASA-funded “Dream Chaser” project. Sierra Nevada Corporation (“SNC”) supports nearly 3,000 scientists, engineers, software developers, and cyber experts at 34 locations across 19 U.S. states, Germany, England, and Turkey....

The government has joined a False Claims Act lawsuit against Energy & Process Corporation (E&P), which was filed by whistleblower Deborah Cook. According to the qui tam (False Claims Act whistleblower) lawsuit, E&P supplied defective reinforcement bar (rebar) for the construction of a nuclear processing facility in the Department of Energy’s Savannah River site in South Carolina.

Georgia-based E&P received millions of dollars from the federal government to perform critical safety work on rebar that was used to build the Savannah River Site facility, also known as the MOX Facility, which was designed to process nuclear waste. As the lawsuit states, because of the hazardous nature of the radioactive material, the facility was “required to be built to withstand earthquakes.”...

In October 2015, whistleblower James Thomas Webb received a $3,115,000 cash award after filing a False Claims Act (FCA) lawsuit alleging Boeing Company submitted false claims for labor charges on C-17 maintenance contracts. Boeing paid a total of $18,115,000 to settle the allegations.

Mr. Webb is not the only Boeing employee who has brought a whistleblower lawsuit against the world’s largest commercial jetliner and military aircraft producer. The Project on Government Oversight’s Federal Contractor Misconduct Database reports 66 instances of misconduct since 1995. Boeing has racked up over $1,456,789,469 in penalties in that time. For decades, Boeing has continued to violate U.S. rules and regulations, wasting taxpayer dollars and putting our nation’s citizens and armed forces at risk....

Failure to report cyberattacks among Department of Defense (DOD) contractors and subcontractors means big whistleblower opportunities for IT professionals and other defense contractor employees. Cyber hacking and cybersecurity breaches are widespread, and a whole new category of cyber whistleblower claims are cropping up around them under the federal False Claims Act.

Cybercrime Could Cost U.S. Companies $2 Trillion by 2019

Cybercrime cost U.S. companies approximately $500 billion in 2015. This number could quadruple to $2 trillion by 2019. Cyber hacks into the computer networks of private vendors that supply aircraft, ammunition, radar technology and specialized software to all areas of our U.S. defense agencies present a significant danger to national security and members of our armed forces. Because of this, federal rules and regulations on cybersecurity continue to tighten....

Earlier this year, Lance Armstrong’s attorneys filed for Summary Judgment, which is a request for a an immediate favorable judgment to be issued without a trial. The matter at hand was a whistleblower lawsuit initiated in 2010 by one of Armstrong’s teammates, which claimed that Armstrong had defrauded the government by doping while being sponsored by the US Postal Service.

In April, Armstrong’s legal defense team claimed that, since the cyclist had not personally signed any of the sponsorship contracts, he couldn’t be held liable, and that USPS (United States Postal Service) had actually benefitted from the agreement in spite of the fallen athlete’s doping.

The saga of Lance Armstrong’s use of performance enhancing drugs has already made it into a movie by renowned director Stephen Frears (The Program, 2015), and it keeps attracting media attention. Frears, who did extensive research to make the film, has commented that doping is surprisingly common among top cyclists. But that is apparently not enough of an excuse for the US Justice Department, which joined in to prosecute the whistleblower lawsuit in 2013....

Five Gardena, California tech companies have agreed to pay over $5.8 million to resolve allegations they obtained small business government contracts through misrepresentation and fraud, thereby violating the federal False Claims Act (FCA).

A competitor company and the competitor’s managing member Anthony Colangelo will split a $1.4 million whistleblower award for filing the initial claim that exposed the FCA violations, the U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday.

Minburn Technology’s Anthony Colangelo Reports En Pointe Gov. Inc. Using Whistleblower Law

Virginia-based Minburn Technology Group and its managing member Anthony Colangelo brought the original whistleblower claim in 2014. The claim alleged that, from 2011 to 2014, En Pointe Gov. Inc., En Pointe Technologies Inc., En Pointe Technologies Sales Inc., Dominguez East Holdings LLC and Din Global Corp. falsely represented a company called En Pointe Gov. Inc. (“En Pointe”) as a small business in order to obtain government-funded contracts specifically set aside to aid small businesses....

Tennessee highway building firm, Mountain States Contractors, has agreed to pay $2.25 million to the U.S. government this week to resolve allegations they violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by falsely claiming to have subcontracted work to a minority-owned business. Whistleblower Ron Meadows, filed the initial lawsuit that triggered the investigation of Mountain States. The U.S. Department of Justice reports Meadows will collect a $500,000 cash whistleblower award as allowed under the FCA for his efforts in putting a stop to the contractor fraud scheme.

Whistleblower Ron Meadows Alleges Mountain States DBE

Meadows’ March 2012 whistleblower lawsuit claimed that the Jones Brothers affiliate, Mountain States, violated the FCA when it allegedly lied about subcontracting work out to minority-owned G&M Associates to qualify for federal funding under the United States Department of Transportation’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program....