Attempting to crack down on a decades-old scam in which front companies perform subcontracts under minority/women-owned business enterprise, or M/WBE, contracting programs, the city of Chicago says it will spend $11 million for improved programs with better oversight. The push follows a federal probe into a company accused by prosecutors of operating as a "sham pass-through" subcontractor on some of the city's biggest public works.Prosecutors have charged Elizabeth Perino, owner of Perdel Contracting Co. and Accurate Steel Installers Inc., with fraud for allegedly using her company as a pass-through firm on four major projects. Perdel was hired by McHugh Construction
Efforts to restart projects stalled by the Libyan civil war have enmeshed Canadian engineer SNC-Lavalin in controversy and apparently triggered the dismissal of two of its top executives.On Feb. 9, the Montreal-based firm announced the dismissal related to "questions regarding the conduct" of two executives who have been "the focus of public attention." The company has not issued another statement or clarified how the two men’s efforts to assess and restart work on the Libyan projects may have violated company rules.SNC-Lavalin announced that Riadh Ben Aissa, executive vice president of construction and infrastructure, and Stephane Roy, vice president-controller for that
Related Links: Efforts To Restart Libyan Projects Land SNC-Lavalin in Controversy SNC-Lavalin says it is investigating $35 million in payments that were improperly made and recorded.The payments were made in the fourth quarter of 2011 and "were documented to construction projects to which they did not relate," the company said Feb. 28."The company is working with its external auditors and legal advisors to resolve all issues relating to the investigation," SNC-Lavalin said.The company also said that it has recorded greater-than-expected losses on its Libyan projects, which were stopped by the Libyan civil war, and that the firm's overall financial performance
Related Links: Ex-KBR Exec Pleads Guilty to Bribery Charge Ex-KBR CEO pleads guilty Halliburton Terminates Relations with Former Exec A. Jack Stanley Closing another chapter in a long federal probe, a former chairman and CEO of the then-Kellogg Brown & Root Inc. has been sentenced to a prison term for his part in what a Justice Dept official termed “a massive bribery scheme” involving $6 billion in contracts for a natural-gas project in Nigeria.The Justice Dept. said that Albert Jackson “Jack” Stanley was sentenced on Feb. 23 to 30 months in prison. U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison also told
Tudor Van Hampton Crane supplier James Lomma. Related Links: N.Y. Crane Collapse Defendant Quietly Changes Plea to Guilty Crane Owner Criminal Trial To Start in November for Fatal Collapse Probers Believe Crane Turntable Weld Had Role in Disaster Jurors Issue Second Acquittal in Deutsche Bank Fire Trial Another high-profile criminal trial linked to fatalities on a New York City construction site began Feb. 21. Prosecutors and defense attorneys offered vastly different views in a Manhattan courtroom about whether equipment rental executive James L. Lomma should be held liable for the damage caused by the collapse of one of his cranes,
Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin is acknowledging that one of two former senior executives had business dealings with a Canadian woman now in jail in Mexico on charges that she tried to smuggle Moammar Gadhafi's son into that country. The company said in a Feb. 9 announcement that Executive Vice President Riadh Ben Aïssa and Vice President-Controller Stéphane Roy were effectively no longer with the company. No reasons were given, other than a statement that “questions regarding the conduct of SNC-Lavalin employees have recently been the focus of public attention.”Roy has been linked with Cynthia Vanier, the woman at the center of the
The Board of Water Commissioners for the Detroit Water and Sewerage Dept. says the contractors it recently suspended from bidding on department contracts due to “actions that have or may have caused [DWSD] economic or non-economic harm” will be allowed to appeal the decision, perhaps within weeks.However, water board Chairman James Fausone hasn't specified the nature of the information the board will require from the 13 firms, which are referenced in a 2010 federal indictment of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D); his father, Bernard Kilpatrick; DWSD contractor Bobby Ferguson and a former DWSD director, Victor Mercardo.On Jan. 5, one
The recession is killing off many smaller construction firms, and surety losses are growing. But bigger, better-managed companies continue to win jobs. Further, overall, the surety losses will be manageable.Speaking at the International Risk Management Institute's construction conference in San Diego, Richard Resnick, senior vice president of Aon Construction Services Group, noted that the number of new contractor-controlled wrap-up insurance programs has pulled even with those of new, owner-controlled programs.Bid credits are the amount saved when a contractor removes the cost of insurance from its bid. "If you look at the number of CCIPs 15 years ago, they might have
The California Dept. of Transportation—first reeling, then hunkering down following revelations that one of its technical engineers may have falsified data regarding the structural soundness of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge's self-anchored suspension-span foundation—has agreed to allow a peer-review panel to conduct an independent investigation of all the records related to the inspections of the piles.Following a long, comprehensive investigation, The Sacramento Bee released details on Nov. 13 about the inspection work of the technician, Duane Wiles. Caltrans released him, along with his foundation testing-group supervisor, Brian Liebich. (Liebich's dismissal, the agency insists, is related to a separate matter
Photo by Michael Goodman for ENR Fraud trial of Derish Wolff, former CEO of design firm Louis Berger, is not likely to start until next spring. By Tudor Van Hampton for ENR Manslaughter trial of James Lomma, the owner of the collapsed tower crane, is delayed until February. Looming high-profile criminal trials involving two construction industry executives are facing new delays.In a Nov. 9 arraignment in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J., regarding the federal fraud case against former Louis Berger Group CEO Derish Wolff, Judge Garrett E. Brown Jr. granted attorneys' requests for a 60-day continuance, until Jan. 9.
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