Company charged for violating False Claims Act.
The world’s largest manufacturer of commercial jets has agreed to pay nearly $4.4 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that stemmed from improper billing practices, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Allegedly, the aerospace and defense company tampered with bills prior to turning them in to the US government for work relating to the Chinook helicopter program carried out at Boeing’s plant near Philadelphia, the report confirms.
And the whistleblower? He is expected to take home $813,000.
According to court papers, in 2003 the US Department of Defense (DoD) sealed contracts with Boeing to revamp and produce Chinook helicopters. The DoD ordered more than 100 new helicopters and Boeing agreed to conduct additional work on several hundred older helicopters.
But court documents indicate Boeing billed the government for ‘over-and-above work’ based on the length of time the repairs took.
And about 30 percent of the time, the government and Boeing found it difficult to reach an agreement on an accurate estimate. As a result, the over-and-above work was billed to the DoD based on Boeing employees’ reports of how long the repairs actually took.
This case was brought to light when Vincent DiMezza, an employee-turned-whistleblower, filed a suit claiming other Boeing employees submitted bills to the government that did not accurately reflect the cost of the work done. Instead, the company billed the DoD for over-and-above work when employees had carried out only basic modifications.
Under the False Claims Act, if an employee has knowledge of fraudulent behavior against the government, he or she can file a lawsuit on behalf of the government. Depending on whether or not the government intervenes and oversees the lawsuit thereafter, the employee is eligible to recover anywhere between 15 percent and 30 percent of the government’s recovery.
A settlement approval hearing is set for February 27.
