Edison Company Undervalued Goods To Avoid Paying Customs Duties: Feds

EDISON, NJ – An Edison-based company entered into a settlement agreement to resolve allegations that it made false statements to avoid paying customs duties, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said Thursday.

From July 8, 2018, to June 7, 2019, Eos Energy Storage LLC purchased components for its batteries from third parties and then provided those components to a foreign manufacturer to be included in the assembly of batteries that Eos imported into the United States, according to the settlement agreement. Once the batteries were assembled, Eos imported them into the United States.

When Eos imported the batteries into the U.S., the company should have declared to U.S. Customs the value of the components that it provided to the foreign manufacturer, Sellinger said. Eos failed to declare the value and also failed to declare transportation and packing costs that should have been declared, authorities said.

The publicly traded company headquartered in Edison designs and sells industrial batteries to power companies and other commercial enterprises.

In the settlement agreement, Eos admitted that as the importer of record, it was obligated to declare the value of the components, as well as the transportation and packing costs, but failed to do so on more than 60 occasions.

Eos will pay $1.02 million to the U.S. pursuant to the False Claims Act.

The settlement with Eos resolves a lawsuit filed under the whistleblower provision of the False Claims Act, which permits private parties, called relators, to file suit on behalf of the United States for false claims and share in a portion of the government’s recovery. The relator, Vincent Icolari, will receive 20 percent of the settlement amount recovered by the United States pursuant to the False Claims Act, Sellinger said.

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