A former employee of NetCracker Technology Corp. was awarded more than $2.3 after he filed a False Claims Act suit against NetCracker and Computer Sciences Corp. that alleged the companies assigned individuals without security clearances to work on a Department of Defense contract.
John Kingsley will receive $2,358,750 as his share of the recovery from the resolution of the case.
In the settlement, NetCracker agreed to pay $11.4 million and Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) agreed to pay $1.35 million, the DOJ said Monday.
NetCracker is a telecom software and services company headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. It is part of NEC Corporation.
CSC is an information technology services company with its headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia.
NetCracker and CSC provided software to help manage the telecommunications network used by the U.S. Department of Defense. The contract was with the Defense Information Systems Agency or DISA.
CSC was the prime contractor and NetCracker was a CSC subcontractor.
From 2008 through 2013, NetCracker allegedly used employees without security clearances to perform work when it knew the contract required those individuals to have security clearances, the DOJ said.
As a result, the DOJ said, “CSC recklessly [submitted] false claims for payment to DISA.”
The whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act permit private parties to file suit on behalf of the United States for false claims and obtain a portion of the government’s recovery. The civil lawsuit in this case was filed by Kingsley in federal court in the District of Columbia.
“Protecting the federal procurement process from false claims is central to the mission of the Department of Justice,” Benjamin C. Mizer, head of the DOJ’s civil division said.
“We will continue to ensure that the government receives what it pays for when federal monies are used to purchase services,” Mizer said.
The lawsuit was United States ex rel. Kingsley v. NetCracker Technology Corp., Civil Action 1:11-cv-00629 (D.D.C.).
The settlement didn’t determine liability for the allegations in the lawsuit, the DOJ said.
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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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