Lockport, Louisiana-based Bollinger Shipyards has agreed to pay the United States $8.5. million to settle a lawsuit alleging the shipbuilder lied in regards to the seaworthiness of a number of getting old Coast Guard vessels it was contracted to elongate.

The fee settles a False Claims Act motion filed in opposition to Bollinger Shipyards within the Eastern District of Louisiana claiming that Bollinger misrepresented the longitudinal energy of patrol boats it retrofitted and delivered to the Coast Guard.

The claims date again to 2002 when Bollinger was contracted to elongate and modernize all 49 of the Coast Guard’s 110-foot Island-class patrol boats or to 123 ft, meant to increase the lifetime of the vessels till the arrival of the next-generation Fast Response Cutters. The Island-class boats have been in any case initially constructed by Bollinger between 1982 and 1992. But quickly after the primary eight vessels accomplished the retrofit and returned to service they started buckling and failing, together with at the very least one vessel that developed a extreme crack in its hull. 

The Coast Guard ultimately ordered all eight vessels decommissioned in 2007 and the modernization program was cancelled.

The United States alleged Bollinger offered the Coast Guard with engineering calculations that falsely represented the longitudinal energy of the boats and was two instances better than their precise longitudinal energy. The go well with additionally claimed Bollinger ran the calculations thrice and solely offered the Coast Guard with the best and most inaccurate, of the three calculations. The U.S. additional alleged Bollinger additionally didn’t comply with the standard management procedures that have been mandated by the contract that might have ensured in opposition to such engineering miscalculations.

“Those who expect to do business with the government must do so fairly and honestly,” mentioned Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Mizer, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “We expect the utmost integrity and reliability from the contractors that design and build equipment that is essential to public safety and our national defense.”

Of the eight lengthened patrol boats, six could be scrapped and two have been transferred to the U.S. Navy and used for goal follow. At the time of their decommissioning, Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen famous: “The excessive cost and time associated with continuing to pursue an uncertain resolution to these structural problems has convinced me — with the recommendation of my chief engineer — that permanently removing these cutters from service while recouping any residual value and redirecting funds to other programs is in the best interest of the government.”

Still, Bollinger Shipyards stays one of many U.S. Coast Guard’s important subcontractors for brand spanking new vessel development. The shipyard lately delivered its fifteenth Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutter (FRC), 154-foot patrol crafts which are simply now beginning to exchange the roughly 30-year-old Island patrol boats. To date, Bollinger has been commissioned to assemble 30 FRCs with a contract worth totaling $1.4 billion.

Bollinger can also be at present competing with two different shipyards for the design and development contracts for an additional next-generation Coast Guard workhorse, the Offshore Patrol Cutter. Up to 25 OPCs are deliberate.