A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against North Florida Shipyards Inc who is accused of creating a front company, Ind-Mar Services Inc., in order to be awarded Coast Guard contracts that were designated for Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs).
The whislteblowers in this action will receive $180,000.
To qualify as a SDVOSB on Coast Guard ship repair contracts, a company must be operated and managed by service disabled veterans and must perform at least 51 percent of the labor. The whistleblower case was started in May of 2011. The government's complaint alleged that North Florida created Ind-Mar merely as a contracting vehicle and that North Florida performed all the work and received all the profits. The government further alleged that if the Coast Guard and the Small Business Administration (SBA) had known that Ind-Mar was nothing but a front company, the Coast Guard would not have awarded it contracts to repair five ships.
In December 2013, the SBA suspended North Florida, Matt Self, Ind-Mar and three others from all government contracting. In April 2014, North Florida and Matt Self entered into an administrative agreement with the SBA in which they admitted to having created and operated Ind-Mar in violation of its Coast Guard contracts and SBA statutes and regulations.
