Technology

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Northrop Grumman Corporation, its subsidiary Northrop Grumman Space and Mission Systems Corporation, and its predecessor TRW Inc. (collectively, Northrop).  They are accused of providing and billing the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for defective microelectronic parts, known as Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors (HBTs).

The whistleblower will receive a $48.75 million share of the recovery.

Originally filed in 2002, the United States intervened in 2008 and alleged that Northrop and TRW failed to properly test and qualify certain HBTs manufactured by TRW from 1992 to 2002.  As a result, Northrop and TRW integrated into NRO satellite equipment certain defective HBTs.  The investigation further concluded that Northrop and TRW made misrepresentations about, and concealed certain material facts regarding the reliability of the HBTs. 

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Sun Microsystems Inc, who merged with Oracle in 2010.  They are accused of submitting false claims and causing others to submit false claims to the General Services Administration (GSA) and other federal agencies.

The whistleblowers' share of the government's recovery has not been disclosed.

Originally filed in September 2004 against Accenture LLP, the United States alleged that Sun knowingly paid kickbacks to systems integrator companies in return for recommendations that federal agencies purchase Sun’s products. Sun executed agreements with consulting companies that provided for the payment of fees each time the companies influenced a government agency to purchase a Sun product. These kickback allegations are part of a larger, ongoing investigation of government technology vendors that has resulted in settlements to date with six other companies.

The settlement also resolves claims under the FCA that Sun’s 1997 and 1999 GSA Schedule contracts were defectively priced because Sun provided incomplete and inaccurate information to GSA contracting officers during contract negotiations, as well as claims that the incomplete and inaccurate information resulted in defective pricing of Sun’s contract with the U.S. Postal Service and GSA Schedule contracts held by two resellers of Sun products. At the time Sun entered into its contracts with GSA to sell information technology products and services to federal agencies, applicable regulations and contract provisions required Sun to fully and accurately disclose to GSA how it conducted business in the commercial marketplace so that GSA could use that information to negotiate a fair price for government customers using the GSA contracts to purchase Sun products and services. The defective pricing information that Sun disclosed to GSA was subsequently relied on by the Postal Service in negotiating a contract with Sun, as well as by GSA in negotiating contracts with two resellers of Sun products.