A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against APL Limited who is accused of overcharging and double-billing the Department of Defense. The whistleblower will receive a $5.2 million share of the government's recovery.
The whistleblower case, filed in October 2004, alleged that APL, a wholly-owned American subsidiary of Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines Limited, knowingly overcharged and double-billed the Department of Defense to transport thousands of containers from ports to inland delivery destinations in Iraq and Afghanistan by inflating its invoices in several ways. For example, APL billed in excess of the rate it paid to plug refrigerated containers holding perishable cargo into a source of electricity at a port in Karachi, Pakistan; billed in excess of the contractual rate to maintain the operation of refrigerated containers at a port in Karachi and at U.S. military bases in Afghanistan; and billed for various non-reimbursable services performed by APL’s subcontractor at a Kuwaiti port.
