A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against United Parcel Service Inc., who is accused of submitting false claims to the federal government in connection with its delivery of Next Day Air overnight packages.
The whistleblower will receive a $3.75 million share of the government's settlement amount.
The lawsuit, filed August 2011, alleged that from 2004 to 2014, UPS engaged in practices that concealed its failure to comply with its delivery guarantees. This deprived federal customers of the ability to request refunds for the late delivery of packages. In particular, the government alleged that UPS knowingly recorded inaccurate delivery times on packages to make it appear that the packages were delivered on time, applied inapplicable “exception codes” to excuse late delivery (such as “security delay,” “customer not in,” or “business closed”), and provided inaccurate “on-time” performance data under the federal contracts.
