Military vehicles maker Navistar Defense pays $50 million to settle whistleblower False Claims Act case for false sales histories

Military vehicles manufacturer, Navistar Defense LLC (Navistar), will pay $50 million to resolve a whistleblower case in which it was revealed  that it fraudulently induced the U.S. Marine Corps to enter into a contract modification at inflated prices for a suspension system for armored vehicles known as Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. During negotiations, Navistar was asked to provide sales information on the contract parts to examine the reasonableness of Navistarā€™s proposed prices. The United States alleged that Navistar knowingly created fraudulent commercial sales invoices and submitted them to the government to justify the companyā€™s prices. The sales written in the commercial sales invoices never occurred. The government relied on the fraudulent sales invoices in agreeing to Navistarā€™s inflated prices.

The civil settlement includes the resolution of claims brought under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act by Duquoin Burgess, a former Government Contracts Manager for Navistar. Under those provisions, a private party can file an action on behalf of the United States and receive a portion of any recovery. The qui tam case is captioned U.S. ex rel. Burgess v. Navistar Defense, LLCet al., No. 13-cv-1463 (D.D.C). Burgess, the whistleblower, will receive $11,600,000 out of the settlement.

JEFFREY NEWMAN REPRESENTS WHISTLEBLOWERS NATIONWIDE. HE IS AT jeff@jeffnewmanlaw.com OR 617-823-3217