Marietta Contractor to Pay $1 Million Settlement to Government

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A Marietta contracting company has agreed to pay the federal government $1 million and to establish a corporate compliance program and ethics code to settle charges that the contractor violated the False Claims Act, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.

C.W. Matthews was accused of subcontracting work on several federally-funded highway improvement projects to a trucking company using a front business to fit under Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) regulations. According to the Attorney’s Office, projects C.W. Matthews successfully bid on in 2006 and 2007 required some subcontracting work be awarded to DBEs.

C.W. Matthews subcontracted some work to Longoria Trucking, a purported DBE, but further investigation revealed that Longoria was nothing more than a front company used by G.E. Robinson, a non-DBE, to allow it to bid on contracts it was otherwise ineligible to bid on. According to the Attorney’s Office, G.E. Robinson paid Longoria a small sum of money for its complicity in the arrangement.

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Furthermore, C.W. Matthews submitted falsified DBE documents to the U.S. Department of Transportation which purportedly described the work Longoria had done and the payments C.W. Matthews had made to Longoria for its work, the Attorney’s Office said.

Apart from the monetary settlement, C.W. Matthews has been ordered to create an ethics code and corporate compliance program, appoint a compliance officer, and use an independent monitor to assess the company’s performance.

“To receive the tangible and intangible benefits that it contracts for, the United States expects companies that actively seek and obtain federally funded contracts to be diligent and forthright in fulfilling their contractual obligations to the Government,” said Acting U.S. Attorney John Horn.