A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Dayton-based TesTech, Inc. and its owner, Sherif Aziz, and Dayton-based CESO Testing Technology, Inc., CESO International, LLC, and CESO, Inc. (collectively CESO), and their owners, David and Shery Oakes. They are accused of falsely claiming disadvantaged business status on a number of federally-funded transportation projects.
The whistleblower will receive $562,370 of the settlement amount.
The initial whistleblower case was filed in November 2010. The government's allegations included that the defendants claimed Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) status for TesTech, a civil engineering firm, on numerous highway and airport construction projects in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Kentucky. The United States also alleged that TesTech was owned and controlled by CESO, a non-DBE firm, and its owners, the Oakes, who falsely claimed that TesTech was owned by Aziz and qualified as a minority-owned business in order to take advantage of the DBE program.