Lockheed Martin Agrees To Pay $27.5 Mln To Settle Overbilling Allegations

(RTTNews) - Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems or LMIS, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin (LMT), has agreed to pay $27.5 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by knowingly overbilling the government for work performed by LMIS employees who lacked required job qualifications.

The settlement was announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General Joyce Branda for the Justice Department's Civil Division and U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman for the District of New Jersey.

The alleged labor mischarging occurred on the Rapid Response (CR2) contract and the Strategic Services Sourcing (S3) contract, both issued by the U.S. Army Communication and Electronics Command (CECOM). CECOM is located at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and at the Aberdeen Proving Group in Maryland. The purpose of the CR2 and S3 contracts is to provide rapid access to products and services to be provided to the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. Individual task orders then are separately negotiated, based on these contracts, to quickly meet the needs of CECOM.

LMIS allegedly violated the terms of the contracts by using under-qualified employees who were billed to the United States at the rates of more qualified employees. The overbilling allegedly resulted in greater profit for LMIS.