A federal judge is Maryland will allow a whistleblower complaint to go forward against the former government services unit of AECOM and defense contractor DynCorp International LLC—both now owned by contractor Amentum—which alleges human trafficking and violations of the federal False Claims Act on two now completed U.S. military contracts in Kuwait a joint venture of the firms had held.
U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis in Baltimore ruled March 9 that there is enough evidence to support allegations by 29 Kuwaiti translators that AECOM and DynCorp knew about and were directly involved in the mistreatment of the linguists who were hired by Global Linguist Solutions (GLS), a joint venture of AECOM National Security Programs Inc. and DynCorp, including that they were being threatened with deportation and that their passports had been confiscated.
The former AECOM unit asked the court to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the facts are insufficient to hold it liable. It had been part of AECOM’s government services business until January 2020, when it was spun off in a $2.4-billion sale to private equity owners and became Amentum. That firm then acquired DynCorp in November 2020.
At issue is whether AECOM and DynCorp had enough control over GLS day-to-day operations at the time, or whether there was enough corporate separation to shield the parent firms from liability for the joint venture entity’s actions under the False Claims Act.
An Amentum spokesperson told ENR it...
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