by Ben Vernia | June 14th, 2013
On June 13, the Department of Justice announced that the government contracting firm Science Applications International Corp. has agreed to pay $11.75 million to settle charges, initially brought by a whistleblower, that the company overcharged the government for training contracts. According to DOJ’s press release:
The Justice Department and U.S. Attorney Kenneth J. Gonzales of the District of New Mexico announced today that Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) has paid $11.75 million to settle allegations filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico that it violated the False Claims Act by charging inflated prices under grants to train first responder personnel to prevent and respond to terrorism attacks. SAIC provides scientific, engineering, and technical services to commercial and government customers and is headquartered in Northern Virginia.
Between 2002 and 2012, the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech) received six federal grants from the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to train first responder personnel to prevent and respond to terrorism events involving explosive devices. New Mexico Tech awarded subgrants to SAIC to provide course management, development, and instruction. The United States alleged that SAIC’s cost proposals falsely represented that SAIC would use far more expensive personnel to carry out its efforts than it intended to use and actually did use, resulting in inflated charges to the United States.
DOJ added that the share that would be paid to the relator, a former project manager for the first responder program, had not yet been determined.
