“Lend Lease hit with $54m fine for fraud
By Caroline CumminsLend Lease has been penalised $US56 million ($A54.3 million) after admitting to fraud over a 10-year period, including over-billing and ignoring minority hiring mandates at New York landmarks, such as the Mets’ baseball stadium and the September 11 memorial site.
Lend Lease’s construction arm, Bovis, agreed to pay the fines and what was termed victim restitution, after hearings in the United States District Court in Brooklyn.
FBI assistant director-in-charge Janice Fedarcyk said the deal capped a three-year probe “into a systemic pattern of audacious fraud by one of the world’s largest construction firms”.
US attorney Loretta Lynch said the company “deceived their customers and stole taxpayer dollars” while abusing a program designed to benefit and train minority contractors.
“The defence of ‘everyone does it’ will not be a shield against law enforcement,” she said. Prosecutors said the company routinely over billed clients, including government contracting agencies.
The government said James Abadie, who formerly led the company’s New York office, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit fraud for over-billing Bovis’ clients for more than a decade. Abadie, 55, faces up to 20 years in prison.
The company regularly added up to two hours of unworked overtime to time-sheets for labour foremen and charged customers for weeks when foremen were on vacation or out sick, court papers said.
This is not the first time Lend Lease has had a run-in with US authorities.
In 2011, the group was discharged of wrongdoing over works on the September 11 site, known then as ground zero.
The fine comes as Lend Lease faces pressure to announce tenants and finance agreements at the $A6 billion Barangaroo site in Sydney. with agencies
(Canberra Times, 26 April 2012)”
WHEN WILL FAIRWORK AUSTRALIA TAKE AWAY LEND LEASE’S RIGHT-OF-ENTRY?
Lend Lease want to end full-time jobs.
Unionists and community supporters are picketing Lend Lease sites at 4 National Circuit and the ASIO HQ
See original article at lend lease 2.pdf (Thanks to HMcQ)