U.S. Sues Lockheed Martin over Alleged Kickback at Nuclear Cleanup Site

摘要

The United States is suing Bethesda-based defense giant Lockheed Martin in connection with an alleged fraudulent kickback scheme related to a $232 million support contract for nuclear waste disposal, the Justice Department announced. It is the latest accusation of contractor malfeasance to emerge from the Hanford site, a decommissioned plutonium production plant in rural southeastern Washington, where companies handling the decades-long, multibillion-dollar decontamination work have been routinely accused of misusing taxpayer money. Federal attorneys accused Lockheed of paying more than $1 million to executives from Mission Support Alliance, a joint venture that it partially owned, in exchange for "improper favorable treatment" when it awarded a $232 million to another Lockheed Martin subsidiary. The contract was awarded without open competition, allegedly at inflated rates. The defendants are accused of lying to the Energy Department to cover up how much profit Lockheed would receive from the work that took place from 2010 to 2016. One of those executives, Jorge Francisco Armijo, later left MSA and became a vice president at Lockheed.