A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Samsung Electronics America Inc who is accused of causing the submission of false claims for products sold on General Service Administration (GSA) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contracts in violation of the Trade Agreements Act of 1979 (TAA).
The whistleblower's share of the recovery has not been determined.
MAS contracts are contracts awarded by GSA to multiple companies supplying comparable products and services. Once GSA negotiates and awards the contract, any federal agency may purchase under it. Like many other federal procurement contracts, GSA MAS contracts require the vendor to certify that all products it offers for sale comply with the TAA. The TAA generally requires the United States to purchase products made in the United States, or another designated country with which the United States has a trade agreement.
Samsung has authorized resellers who hold GSA MAS contracts. Samsung certifies to the authorized resellers that Samsung will provide TAA compliant products and the resellers in turn list those products on the resellers’ GSA MAS contracts.
The original whistleblower case was filed in October of 2011 and allges that, from January 2005 through August 2013, Samsung caused resellers of its products to sell items on their GSA MAS contracts in violation of the TAA by knowingly providing inaccurate information to the resellers regarding the country of origin of the goods. The United States alleges that Samsung represented to the resellers, who in turn represented to federal agencies, that the specified products were made in TAA designated countries, generally Korea or Mexico, when the specified products were in fact manufactured in China, which is not a TAA designated country.
