The PBSJ Corp., a Tampa-based architecture, engineering and construction firm, is conducting an internal investigation into whether its subsidiary, PBS&J International Inc., broke the law in pursuing projects overseas. The $618-million, employee-owned company disclosed the investigation in a Dec. 30 filing to the federal Securities and Exchange Commission. In the filing, it told the SEC that it could not file its required year-end annual report for 2009 on time because the audit committee of its board of directors was seeking “to determine whether any laws have been violated, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, in connection with certain projects undertaken
The U.S. Energy Dept.’s inspector general on Dec. 30 cleared a top DOE official in charge of overseeing the agency’s $6 billion of stimulus spending of abusing her authority related to spending at the agency’s Savannah River site in Aiken, S.C. But investigators said they found a toxic work atmosphere at the facility, poisoned by charges of “racism and reverse discrimination.” In a three-page report, Inspector General Gregory Friedman said he found no conclusive evidence that the official, Cynthia Anderson, engaged in any wrongdoing. She was not identified by name in the version of the report publicly released. But according
U.S. District Court Judge Sterling Johnson, sitting in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Nov. 25 named two attorneys, including a former federal corruption prosecutor, to probe continuing graft allegations against two key operating engineers’ locals in New York City. The appointment of George A. Stamboulidis follows a 2008 consent decree with Locals 14 and 14B that settled civil racketeering charges against union officials that included mob influence in hiring, particularly for crane operating positions. The decree noted anticorruption steps the locals had taken, but union officials also agreed to take additional measures.
When Ireland-based recruitment firm Parc U.K. Ltd. in 2003 began to offer British contractors outsourced worker staffing services, it was pioneering a new way of doing business in the U.K. construction market. Six competitors, who responded by forming a “cartel” against it, now face fines totalling $61.2 million. As the biggest cartel member, Hays plc, London, was fined $48 million by the government’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) late last month. That fine was discounted by 30% because the firm agreed to cooperate with investigators. Without the cooperation discounts the firms’ fines would have totaled $273 million, reflecting the “serious
The University of Georgia Athletic Association has dropped Hardin Construction Co. as prime contractor on an $18.6-million expansion of an office and practice facility building in Athens, Ga., because of concern following the Dec. 19, 2008, collapse of a deck section that killed one worker at a Hardin project at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. “We didn’t want additional attention brought to the [new] project while that incident is being investigated,” says Arthur Johnson, associate athletic director. Atlanta-based Hardin is contesting a proposed safety fine over the accident. Although the final contract for the expansion project at Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall had
Two former employees of Aggregate Industries NE Inc., Saugus, Mass., pleaded guilty on July 8 to 12 charges involving a conspiracy to deliver substandard concrete to the $15-billion Central Artery/Tunnel project. Four more employees are scheduled to go to trial this week in U.S. District Court in Boston. Gerard M. McNally and Keith H. Thomas pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy, five counts of mail fraud and five counts of filing false reports stemming from a 2006 indictment alleging that, between 1996 and 2005, the six defendants delivered at least 5,000 10-yd truckloads of “non-specification” concrete to the project.
British steel-bridge manufacturer Mabey & Johnson Ltd. pleaded guilty on July 10 to corrupt practices in Jamaica and Ghana between 1993 and 2001 and violating United Nations’ sanctions against trade with Iraq in 2001 and 2002. The company is the first to be prosecuted in the U.K. for corruption overseas and faces court sentencing later this summer, says the Serious Fraud Office, the independent government agency that investigated and prosecuted the case. Mabey & Johnson, based in Reading, England, supplies small to medium size prefabricated modular bridges. The firm volunteered evidence of corruption to authorities last year following its own
U.K.-based bridge steel bridge manufacturer Mabey & Johnson Ltd., Reading, pleaded guilty on July 10 to corrupt practices in Jamaica and Ghana between 1993 and 2001, and also of breaking United Nations’ sanctions over trading with Iraq in 2001-2002. The company is the first to be prosecuted in the U.K. for corruption overseas, according to Serious Fraud Office, the prosecutor. Mabey & Johnson, which supplies small to medium size prefabricated modular bridges, was committed to sentencing by the Crown Court later this summer. The firm volunteered evidence of corruption to the authorities last year following its own internal investigation in
Billions of dollars in fast-track federal construction stimulus spending is expected to boost cases of fraud and ratchet up government scrutiny, say industry executives. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s $787-billion spending total will likely lure many out-of-work firms into the federal contracting arena, boosting competition and fraud potential. “There is a lot of public pressure to step up enforcement of taxpayer money,” said Mark A. Aiello, a partner with Foley Lardner LLP, Detroit, at the Construction Financial Management Association’s annual conference, held last month in Las Vegas. Subcontractors and third-tier suppliers also are subject to federal sanctions for front-loaded
A former resident engineer in Iraq for the Army Corps of Engineers was indicted on May 4 by the Justice Dept. on federal charges of soliciting $40,000 in bribes from an unidentified construction contractor on a $2.5-million civil-works project in Kirkuk. DOJ says Joselito “Joe” Domingo of Bolingbrook, Ill., who the Corps recently transferred to Afghanistan, solicited the bribes in exchange for assurances that the contractor would receive progress payments, not lose its contract or be blacklisted from work in Iraq. Domingo faces up to 15 years in jail and a $250,000 fine.
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