FEBRUARY 15, 2024. Siemens Industry, Inc., a subsidiary of Siemens Corporation, on behalf of itself and predecessor entity Siemens Building Technologies, Inc. (Siemens) will pay $1,086,430 to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act.
In 2011, Siemens entered into a contract with the Hamtramck Housing Commission (HHC), a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-funded public housing authority. Under this contract, Siemens agreed to install energy efficiency improvements in housing facilities in Hamtramck, Michigan. While developing the contract, Siemens calculated the amount of energy that would be saved due to the energy efficiency improvements it would undertake.
Siemens sent this data to the HHC, who in turn submitted the records to HUD. Siemens allegedly used inaccurate data in its energy calculations, which caused the United States to pay more money to the HHC than it would have if the data sent to them was accurate.
The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan stated that “Federal contractors are expected to deal honestly with federal agencies, even where there are intermediaries between the agency and the contractor.”
The claims were brought by two whistleblowers, Kevin Kondrat and Jessica Jones, who filed a suit under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act. For their efforts, the whistleblowers will receive $179,260.85 from the settlement.
If you would like to report government contracting fraud, you can contact attorneys at Tycko & Zavareei LLP. Eva Gunasekera and Renée Brooker are former officials of the United States Department of Justice and prosecuted whistleblower cases under the False Claims Act. Renée served as Assistant Director at the United States Department of Justice, the office that supervises False Claims Act cases in all 94 United States District Courts. Eva was the Senior Counsel for Health Care Fraud. Eva and Renée now represent whistleblowers. For a free consultation, you can contact Renée at [email protected] (tel.: 202-417-3664) or contact Eva Gunasekera at [email protected]. You can also go to Tycko & Zavareei LLP’s website for whistleblowers to learn more at https://www.fraudfighters.net.