Month: November 2012

Fraud – FMC, No Never

It appears that Fmc was given a record fine for fraud – FMC Corp. settles whistleblower lawsuit on Bradley Fighting Vehicles for $13 million.

October 8, 1996 — FMC Corp., a diversified manufacturing company that makes the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, has agreed to pay the federal government $13 million to settle a whistleblower case. It is the largest civil judgment that has ever been won in a government fraud case in northern California. The lawsuit charged FMC deceived the government and deliberately inflated by millions of dollars costs for which it was entitled to be reimbursed by the U.S.

Army. The deception increased the price tag for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, an armored vehicle used in the Gulf War, which the government paid FMC $1.1 billion to produce from 1991 to 1994. The cost of other weapon systems that the Chicago-based corporation produced for the Pentagon also was affected.

Robert Neargarder, a mid-level manager in the company’s Ground Systems division in San Jose, filed the lawsuit under the False Claims Act in April 1995 in U.S. District Court in San Jose. The False Claims Act allows private citizens to sue, on behalf of the federal government, companies that are defrauding taxpayers. Guilty defendants can be ordered to pay the government three times its losses plus penalties.

Wow that is heavy stuff – wonder what more I can dig up – hmm.

A Little Bird

A little bird has been whispering in my ear that FMC is no longer going to have permission to harvest seaweed at Runde after the unprecedented damage to the infrastructure caused by last winters storms following the removal of seaweed. Apparently moves are also afoot to stop seaweed trawling in the big bird reserve.

There are also other places where damage has occurred after seaweed harvesting

Does this mean that the government is beginning to take a serious look at seaweed trawling and at FMC in particular?

“We have dialog with FMC Biopolymer and they are well aware of that there will be changes in the future and they are open for cultivation idea
. We have several IMTA pilot project going on with Sintef, IMR, NTNU and the second largest fish farmer in Norway, Lerøy.”  This is part of a reply from Belona one of Norway’s environmental organizations.

FMC told us that cultivation was not on the agenda – that seems to have changed – “changes in the future” – does that mean that taretråling is going to stop or be severely curtailed?  Let us hope so.  It is the only environmentally responsible action.