MPRI: Employees on Leave, Labor on the Army’s Bill

In the MPRI Afghanistan settlement, MPRI Inc. agreed to pay $3.2 million to resolve allegations that it billed the Army for employees on leave outside the country. A finance officer and contract support official brought the whistleblower case. For someone who knows the deployed workforce or handles its charges, the question is whether the labor billed matched the work people actually performed.

The Justice Department announced the settlement on February 12, 2014. It alleged false billing from March 2005 through October 2010. The case illustrates a specific form of defense contractor labor fraud: charging for work the government said employees had not done because they were away on approved leave.

What the Army Hired MPRI to Do

MPRI’s Army contract supported the effort to build a new Afghan Defense Sector and national security system. The work included program and financial management, developing and implementing core systems for the Afghan Ministry of Defense and General Staff, intermediate commands and sustaining institutions. Training covered logistics, acquisitions, installation management and intelligence.

Brookings’ 2007 paper, Can’t Win With ‘Em, Can’t Go to War Without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency, describes an oversight problem in Iraq: contracting expanded while the number of government contract officers shrank. Those officers monitored the work on the government’s behalf. Buying more services while reducing the people who check them leaves a gap between what a contractor bills and what the government can see.

For a finance insider, that gap is familiar ground. The person working with individual labor charges may be able to explain an absence that a government reviewer sees only as part of a larger bill. MPRI’s case shows why that perspective matters: the whistleblower worked in finance and contract support, and the government’s allegation concerned people billed as working while away on leave.

How the Leave-Time Billing Allegation Worked

The government alleged that MPRI billed for employees who had not worked because they had been granted leave and were outside Afghanistan. Approved leave and a labor charge for the same period tell different stories about what the Army was buying. In a case built around that discrepancy, we connect the employee, the time away and the charge that reached the government.

Each part of that comparison answers a different question:

• Deployment records: Where was the employee during the period covered by the charge?
• Leave records: What time away had the company granted?
• Billed labor: What work did the company charge to the Army for that employee and period?

A Finance Insider Brought the Case

MPRI employed the whistleblower in Afghanistan from 2007 through 2009 as a finance officer and contract support official. He filed a qui tam case under the False Claims Act, which allows private individuals to bring cases on the government’s behalf and share in a recovery.

The settlement resulted from a coordinated effort by the Justice Department’s Civil Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio. The investigative team included the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

Connecting What You Saw to What the Army Paid For

The contract’s payment terms determine how labor affects the bill. The contract specifies both the work being purchased and the evidence required to support payment. That is why we examine the actual contract requirements alongside the charge, rather than stop at a payroll entry or a deployment roster.

In a leave-billing matter, useful evidence connects personnel records to the payment request. Someone in finance may understand the charge, while someone supporting deployed staff may understand the absence. A LOGCAP billing problem separate from MPRI’s allegations and settlement shows why employee-level detail matters: the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General found supporting records that combined costs for hundreds of employees into a single sum for one employee. We work with the insider who can explain how those accounts meet, what the contract required and how the company presented the work to the government.

A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers. In MPRI’s case, the Justice Department announced that the finance officer would receive a share of the settlement. Your knowledge of the underlying work is where our conversation starts.

You Know Who Was Away

If you handled leave, deployed personnel or labor billing and saw the Army charged for work people did not perform, talk with our whistleblower experts about what you saw. We build the case around your knowledge of the work and bring in defense contractor fraud whistleblower lawyers who understand labor charges and contract payment terms. You have a partner in us from that first conversation through the pursuit of a recovery.