On June 24, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Washington announced that federal contractor Washington River Protection Solutions, LLC (WRPS) agreed to pay $6.5 million to settle whistleblower allegations that it violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by fraudulently overcharging the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for millions of dollars in labor hours at the Hanford Nuclear Site’s “Tank Farms.”
The case stems from a qui tam whistleblower suit filed by a WRPS employee. The whistleblower is set to receive $1.4 million of the settlement amount and is entitled to have WRPS pay attorney fees.
According to the government, “WRPS’ management was aware of and failed to prevent inflated labor hours being charged to DOE, including labor hours in which WRPS employees, paid for with federal funds, were not scheduled or assigned sufficient work to perform.”
Specifically, the government alleges that “WRPS fraudulently inflated reimbursable costs by failing to provide its employees with work assignments sufficient to fill an entire shift and then directed those same employees to record their time as if they had worked the entire shift” and that “this false recording of time resulted in WRPS knowingly submitting false claims for the payment of those labor hours.”
“The relator-whistleblower in this case is to be commended,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Richard Barker. “This individual came forward with serious and credible allegations of fraud that were then investigated for...
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