Balfour appoints law firm to probe US fraud claims

摘要

Balfour Beatty has appointed US lawyers to investigate claims it falsified records on a long-term housing maintenance contract it holds with the US air force. A whistleblower claimed Balfour Beatty Communities, its US residential development business, systematically faked official logs on a maintenance job at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma to reap performance awards from the client. The allegations, which have been taken up by Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, suggest employees of Balfour Beatty also kept secret logs detailing the actual status of jobs and response times. Robert Whittington, the firm's manager at Tinker between 2014 and 2017, told Reuters he doctored logs under pressure from his superiors, adding: "It's like [Balfour Beatty is] operating a bank robbery at a corporate level."