Halliburton Unit to Pay $8 Million for Overbilling
KBR Settlement Ends Kosovo Case
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/29/AR2006112901305.html
By Griff Witte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 30, 2006; Page A09A Halliburton subsidiary agreed to pay the government $8 million to resolve accusations of overbilling related to the firm's work for the Army in the Balkans, the Justice Department said yesterday.
The allegations against KBR, formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root, stemmed from orders placed with 10 foreign subcontractors that were working for KBR on military logistics support in 1999 and 2000. The accusations, made under the federal False Claims Act, included double-billing, inflating prices and providing products that didn't fit the Army's needs during the construction of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.
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Several False Claims Act cases related to work in Iraq are pending, but none has resulted in a contractor having to repay money to the United States. In one lawsuit, whistle-blowers accused the firm Custer Battles of using its contracts in Iraq to cheat the government. A federal jury decided in March that the company should pay a $10 million penalty. But in August, a judge threw out the decision, ruling that the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq at the time of the alleged fraud, was not a U.S. government entity.
KBR, the U.S. military's largest contractor in Iraq, is at the heart of several other pending False Claims Act cases, and its work is the subject of numerous federal investigations. Congressional Democrats have been particularly critical of Halliburton, which was run by Dick Cheney before he became vice president.
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