The Corporate Whistleblower Center is urging established contractors nationwide to partner with them in exposing major construction companies in their states, if they have well documented proof a construction company is gaming the federal contracting system for big government construction jobs by falsely claiming they are a minority-owned business.
"We want to talk to insiders at an established construction company, who possess well documented proof a general contractor in their state has been awarded federal contracts, or subcontracts for work on highways, military bases, super fund environmental clean up sites, or any other type of major federal contract, if the company awarded the contract was awarded the contract, because they falsely claimed to be a minority owned business," says the Corporate Whistleblower Center.
As an example of this, in June 2014, the Justice Department announced that a number of related entities and individuals agreed to pay $2,883,947 to resolve allegations that they falsely claimed disadvantaged business status on a number of federally-funded transportation projects.
The settlement announced resolves allegations that the defendants claimed DBE status for TesTech, a civil engineering firm, on numerous highway and airport construction projects in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Kentucky. The United States alleged that TesTech was owned and controlled by CESO, a non-DBE firm, and its owners, the Oakes, who falsely claimed that TesTech was owned by Aziz and qualified as a minority-owned business in order to take advantage of the DBE program.
In this instance the whistleblower will receive $562,370 of the settlement amount.
(more on the Corporate Whistleblower Center's call for help...)
