The three-year-long civil and criminal investigation of Louis Berger Group’s billings for federal aid and reconstruction projects came to light on Aug. 9 just as the federal government was ramping up audits and investigations of Afghanistan and Iraq reconstruction contracts looking for possible improprieties.
But the Berger investigation by the Dept. of Justice began long before the reconstruction probes by the special inspector general for those two countries and applies to Berger’s billing method for U.S. Agency for International Development work over a much longer period of time in several countries, says a spokeswoman for the company. The Afghanistan and Iraq crackdown only adds to contractors’ problems of working in war-ravaged, impoverished countries, elevating what’s known as compliance risk—and exposing them to potentially heavy penalties.