In a whistle-blower case, a company that supplied rebar to the government for construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication and Reactor Irradiation Services facility in Aiken, South Carolina, has agreed to pay $4.6 million to a settle a lawsuit alleging that it failed to provide the quality controls for the rebar stipulated in the contract.
Energy & Process Corporation of Tucker, Ga., agreed to settle the case with a monetary settlement. In addition, the company has already replaced some of the rebar that went into the project and was found to be made of substandard steel.
About a third of the Energy & Process-supplied rebar used in the construction project was found to be substandard, the lawsuit alleged. The government sued the company under the False Claims Act, alleging that the company not only supplied substandard rebar, but also claimed falsely that it had performed the quality control assurances called for in the contract.
“Our complaint alleges that after actively touting its experience with nuclear construction and quality assurance work, and then being hired to perform such work in connection with an important project, E&P chose to forgo the agreement for quality assurance work, and then compounded this failure by falsely certifying to the government that it had performed the quality assurance work,” said U.S. Attorney John Horn for the Northern District of Georgia.
The allegations surfaced after a whistle-blower tipped off the government. The amount to be paid to the whistle-blower was not announced.