Bovis Lend Lease, one of the world's largest construction companies, has admitted to fraud and agreed to pay the U.S. government $50 million to settlement the charges yesterday. And how did it perpetrate the fraud? Well, a former Bovis executive, James Abadie, explained it this way in court today, "From at least 1999 to 2009, I agreed with others at Bovis to continue the existing practice for Laborers at Local 79 to add one or two hours to their time sheets every day whether it was worked or not. I and others authorized the practice for labor foremen to take vacation and holidays while filling out their time sheets as though they had worked."
Abadie, called "one of the most prominent construction executives in the city" by the US Attorney's office, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud by fraudulently overbilling Bovis’ clients. The Justice Department worked with the FBI, Manhattan DA's office, Port Authority, NYC government and other agencies in the investigation.
The US Attorney's Office also said, "The company, which changed its name from Bovis Lend Lease to Lend Lease after a fatal fire during its demolition of the Deutsche Bank building, will not be prosecuted criminally as a result of the agreement with federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, who say it is the largest construction fraud settlement ever in New York City.... Abadie and Bovis employed the fraudulent overbilling scheme across the broad spectrum of Bovis’ projects in the New York metropolitan area, including some of the area’s most important, large-scale public and private construction projects. Affected projects included the United States Post Office/Bankruptcy Court in Brooklyn, New York; the Bronx Criminal Courthouse in the Bronx, New York; Grand Central Terminal; the Deutsche Bank building deconstruction in New York, New York; Citifield in Queens, New York; and the very United States Courthouse in which Bovis was charged and Abadie pled guilty this morning." Irony!
Bovis also claimed it had hired minority sub-contractors on public project, but never did: "In reality, Bovis secretly performed the work itself by directly managing the union labor that was supposed to be employed and supervised by HJR and relegated HJR’s role to a mere pass-through, thereby fraudulently enabling Bovis to get false credit for compliance with its MBE obligations and get paid for its work on the project."
US Attorney Loretta Lynch said, "Our investigation of the industry continues, and the resolution we reached today should send a very clear message. Given the public nature of many of these projects, we must ensure that taxpayers get their money’s worth and that the industry complies with the law. The defense of ‘everyone does it’ will not be a shield against law enforcement."
