A New Jersey highway contractor has agreed to pay $950,000 for allegedly falsely representing itself as a “disadvantaged business enterprise” to gain contracts.
MV Contracting Inc. of Colonia obtained “numerous” contracts on projects that received Federal Highway Administration funding set aside for DBE companies, according to U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger.
MV submitted improper claims for payment knowing that it did not qualify as a DBE, Sellinger said.
The alleged violations of the federal False Claims Act occurred between October 2016 and April 2019.
The U.S. Justice Department and MV Contracting reached a settlement on September 20 “to avoid delay, uncertainty, inconveniences and expense of protracted litigation,” according to the settlement agreement.
The Justice Department was acting on behalf of the FHWA and the U.S. Department of Transportation. The settlement agreement prevents the U.S. government from seeking civil prosecution against MV Contracting on the claims in exchange for the company paying $950,000. Details of the alleged violations were not revealed in the agreement.
The DBE program is designed to help overcome discrimination and related barriers for minority- and women-owned businesses seeking federally assisted surface transportation work, according to the USDOT. The program is geared only to “bona fide small firms, owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individual(s).”
The program began in 1980 and was last reauthorized by Congress in 2021 as part of the $1.2 trillion federal infrastructure law.
The DBE program, however, has come under legal challenge recently following a federal court decision that could curtail the program.
Sellinger credited the USDOT’s Office of Inspector General and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s Office of Inspector General with the investigation of the allegations against MV Contracting.
The United States is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark C. Orlowski of the U.S. Attorney’s Health Care Fraud Unit in Newark.
“The claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability,” the attorneys office said.
