Bechtel and AECOM Energy and Constructon Inc., now operating as Amentum, have agreed to pay $57.8 million to the federal government to settle a whistleblower False Claims Act suit alleging the firms were aware of overstated work-hours billing to the U.S. Energy Dept. over a decade in building a multibillion-dollar radioactive waste treatment plant at the Hanford nuclear cleanup site in southeast Washington state.
The original lawsuit, brought in 2017 by four whistleblowers who at the time were current or former contractor employees, claims that from 2009 to 2019 the firms inflated work hours for hundreds of electricians, millwrights, pipefitters and other craft workers in labor charges billed to DOE. The U.S.Justice Dept. joined the lawsuit in February 2020.