UMD College Park To Pay $500K In False Claims Act Case Filed By U.S. Government

COLLEGE PARK, MD — The University of Maryland, College Park has agreed to pay $500,000 to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by failing to disclose current and pending support from foreign sources for faculty members who were principal investigators or co-PIs of federal research grant proposals.

The settlement relates to research grant support UMD received from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of the Army between 2015 and 2020. These agencies require grant applicants to disclose all current and pending support received by the institution, its PIs and co-PIs.

The United States alleged UMD knowingly failed to disclose current and pending foreign funding that three UMD researchers had sought and received, in five research grant proposals submitted to the NSF and Army. Specifically, the United States alleged UMD failed to disclose to NSF gift funding from Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. to a PI for research in “high energy density FeF3 conversion cathode materials and Li metal anodes.” Additionally, the United States alleged UMD failed to disclose to the NSF and Army grant funding to two other PIs from Taobao (China) Software Co., Ltd. (Alibaba), titled, “Large-Scale Behavior Learning for Dense Crowds” and “Cyber-Manufacturing of Customized Apparel.”

“Complete and accurate disclosures are essential to federal agencies that make decisions on awarding federal grants,” said Erek L. Barron, United States Attorney for the District of Maryland. “Those individuals and universities that knowingly fail to do so skew the grant awarding process in their favor and will be held accountable.”