Seven South Korea-based companies must pay a total of $3.1 million for allegedly violating the False Claims Act by engaging in a bid-rigging conspiracy that targeted U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) contracts for construction and engineering work on U.S. military bases in South Korea.
The seven companies are Korea Engineering Consultants; Yul Lim Construction; Shin Woo Construction & Industrial; Seongbo Construction Industrial; Wooseok Construction; Yuil Engineering and Construction; and Seokwang Development. Each company has agreed to pay the United States an equal share of the settlement in the amount of $438,537, according to the settlement agreement.
According to the Department of Justice, “the seven companies conspired to suppress and eliminate competition during the bidding process on 15 USACE contracts awarded between 2016 and 2019.” Consequentially, due to this anticompetitive conduct, the USACE “paid substantially more for services performed under the contracts than it would have had there been competition among the bidders,” the Justice Department stated.
The resolution obtained in this matter resulted from a coordinated effort between the Justice Department’s Civil Division, Commercial Litigation Branch, and Fraud Section; the Army Criminal Investigation Division Major Procurement Fraud Unit; the FBI’s International Contract Corruption Task Force; and Defense Criminal Investigative Service. 