Berg Companies: Coordinated Quotes for Rigid-Wall Shelters

In the Berg Companies settlement, the manufacturer agreed to pay $3.3 million to resolve allegations of bid rigging on military purchases of rigid-wall shelters. Berg admitted supplying inflated quotes so other sellers of its own shelters would win the orders. If you work in supplier sales or purchasing, the revealing document is the losing quote: someone inside the business knew it was supposed to lose.

The Justice Department announced the resolution on July 14, 2025. Berg, based in Spokane, Washington, manufactured the shelters and sold them directly and indirectly to the federal government.

How Military Shelter Purchases Reached Berg

The Defense Logistics Agency’s European Command maintenance, repair and operations contracts let military customers in Europe buy equipment through a prime vendor. Noble Supply & Logistics held the contracts involved in Berg’s settlement. The purchasing program covered hardware, electrical supplies and tools as well as prefabricated structures.

A prime contractor deals directly with the government, while manufacturers, distributors and other vendors can supply the prime or another subcontractor. In Berg’s admitted account, it made the shelters and supplied inflated quotes for Noble to submit to the agency so other sellers would win the orders. An employee dealing with the shelter price could therefore see conduct that reached a government purchase through another company’s paperwork.

The prime vendor earned payment per transaction and had to obtain bids from at least two independently competing vendors below $25,000, and at least three at or above that threshold. The requirement was meant to secure favorable prices for military customers. Berg admitted knowing that Noble had to obtain competitive quotes, then coordinating the prices submitted for its shelters.

That is the distinctive feature of this defense procurement bid-rigging case. The manufacturer supplied a higher comparison price for the very product the intended winner would sell. We see a purchasing safeguard turned inside out: the quote meant to test the price helped protect it.

The Coordinated Shelter Quotes

Berg’s settlement agreement identifies the solicitations and the intended winners. Its admissions cover conduct between July 2019 and May 2021, with Improve Group and JDI Integrations receiving different groups of orders.

Improve Group’s Shelter Orders

Berg admitted coordinating with Noble and Improve Group, an Albuquerque storage solutions and logistics company, to submit inflated shelter quotes at their request. Noble submitted those quotes to the Defense Logistics Agency. The agreement states the arrangement plainly:

The arrangement covered two solicitations awarded to Improve Group. The first, in 2019, involved six shelters, for which the United States paid Noble approximately $1,018,387. The second, in 2020, involved four shelters and a payment to Noble of approximately $674,007.

JDI Integrations’ Shelter Orders

Berg also admitted coordinating with Noble, JDI Integrations and Spear Limited to submit inflated quotes so JDI Integrations would win. This arrangement covered 26 solicitations for 29 Berg-made shelters. Berg’s quote again had to be higher than the intended winner’s.

The United States alleged that the coordination defeated the required independent competition and caused military customers to be overcharged. It also contended that Berg caused Noble, Improve Group and JDI Integrations to submit false claims to the agency.

The Whistleblowers and Their Reward

The case came through the False Claims Act’s qui tam provisions. One whistleblower was a former Improve Group sales representative. The other was the managing director of a United Kingdom company manufacturing storage equipment sold to U.S. military customers through the same prime-vendor contracts. By the time of the agreement, the former Improve Group salesperson worked for the other whistleblower’s company.

The agreement set their combined reward at 17% of each settlement payment received by the United States. A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers.

Berg received credit for cooperating, investigating internally and improving compliance. The Justice Department’s Civil Division and the United States Attorney’s Offices in New Mexico and Massachusetts coordinated the resolution.

What Proof Do You Need as a Whistleblower?

For a coordinated-quote case, the useful proof connects who chose the prices to what the prime submitted and what the government bought. We examine the solicitation, competing quotes, communications about the intended winner, and the order and payment that followed. In Berg, the admitted instruction to make its quote higher explains the relationship between documents that otherwise carry different sellers’ names.

Someone in sales may know why a price changed before submission. A purchasing employee may know who requested the competing offer, while a prime-vendor employee may know what reached the government. Those different views can connect the records behind a whistleblower claim to decisions made before the buyer saw the final comparison.

A separate settlement involving S.A.F.E. Structure Designs and U.S.A. Manufacturing shows how sham competing quotes could be purchased. The settlement announced by the Justice Department included the parties’ admissions to arrangements involving commonly owned bidders and paid noncompetitive quotations through Noble. That case adds a different kind of evidence: payments for the supposedly competing quote itself.

The whistleblower’s amended complaint against ADS Tactical alleged another arrangement over prime-vendor orders. Its description of coordination gives losing bids and missing bids a common purpose:

Third Way’s 2026 policy memo Pentagon Procurement: Big Spending, Bigger Vulnerabilities argues that detected defense fraud cases provide only a partial picture and that program integrity risks are likely underreported. Berg shows why the story behind a quotation matters: the apparent losing offer was part of the admitted arrangement. The person who knows how that offer was produced can explain what a comparison of prices leaves hidden.

The Settlement Costs Could Not Become Another Government Bill

The agreement barred Berg from charging its investigation, defense, corrective-action and settlement costs directly or indirectly to U.S. government contracts. It also required Berg to identify and repay such costs previously submitted for payment, with the government retaining the right to examine its books. For a contract accountant, that provision puts the handling of the settlement’s own costs into view. Taxpayers were not supposed to finance Berg’s response to the case through another contract bill.

You Know Why the Quote Had to Be Higher

If you priced, requested or passed along a shelter quote meant to lose, tell our whistleblower experts how that request reached you. We work beside you to build a defense procurement whistleblower case around the pricing decisions you saw, bringing in defense procurement whistleblower lawyers who understand prime-vendor purchasing. From the first conversation through the case, we are your partners in making that inside knowledge count.