[ad_1]
The consulting agency Booz Allen Hamilton has agreed to pay $377.5 million to settle a federal lawsuit that accused it of falsely billing the U.S. authorities, the Justice Division mentioned on Friday.
The settlement resolves allegations that between 2011 and 2021, Booz Allen improperly charged the federal government for oblique prices that it ought to have billed underneath its industrial and worldwide contracts, the Justice Division mentioned in a information launch. The federal government had alleged that the agency “obtained reimbursement from the federal government for the prices of economic actions that offered no profit to the USA.”
A consulting agency’s oblique prices can embody bills like gear, advertising and workplace area.
Booz Allen, which relies in McLean, Va., has profitable protection and intelligence contracts with the federal authorities. Investigators started reviewing the agency’s billing practices in 2016.
“Authorities contractors should flip sq. corners when billing the federal government for prices underneath authorities contracts,” Brian M. Boynton, principal deputy assistant lawyer and head of the Justice Division’s civil division, mentioned in a press release.
Matthew M. Graves, U.S. lawyer for the District of Columbia, mentioned within the information launch that the settlement was “one of many largest procurement fraud settlements in historical past.”
A spokeswoman for Booz Allen mentioned in a press release on Friday that the corporate believed it had acted “lawfully and responsibly.”
“It determined to settle this civil inquiry for pragmatic enterprise causes to keep away from the delay, uncertainty and expense of protracted litigation,” the spokeswoman mentioned. “The corporate didn’t wish to interact in what doubtless would have been a yearslong court docket struggle with its largest consumer, the U.S. authorities, on an immensely complicated matter.”
A parallel legal investigation into the allegations by the Justice Division was closed in 2021 with no prices. An investigation by the Securities and Trade Fee is continuous.
Source link