The DOJ said Friday that Hewlett-Packard Co. agreed to pay $32.5 million to resolve allegations under the False Claims Act that it overcharged the U.S. Postal Service for products for ten years starting in 2001.
Palo Alto-based H-P makes computers and printers and other information technology products.
In April, it agreed to pay more than $108 million to settle FCPA charges brought by the DOJ and SEC. An H-P subsidiary paid more than $2 million through agents and various shell companies to a government official for a multi-million dollar contract with the Russian federal prosecutor’s office.
In a release Friday, the DOJ said H-P breached a contract with the Postal Service that required H-P to “provide prices that were no greater than those offered to H-P customers with comparable contracts.”
H-P also made “misrepresentations during the negotiation of the contract regarding its pricing and its plans to ensure it would provide the required most favored customer pricing,” the DOJ said.
The DOJ’s August 1, 2014 release is here.
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Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. He can be contacted here.
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