The U.S. government has accused Kuwait-based Agility of defrauding the Defense Department on a massive food logistics contract to U.S. military based in several Middle East countries.
The company, previously known as Public Warehousing Co. (PWC), was indicted for fraud last fall but has fought the charges. Last week, it filed a motion to have the case blocked, alleging the government improperly served the indictment. U.S. attorneys shot back that the company has been purposely evasive and called it a 'fugitive of justice.' Assistant U.S. Attorney Barbara Nelan alleged the company is playing a game of 'catch me if you can.'
Last week, Agility attorney Tom Bever, who represents a U.S. subsidiary of the company, told a federal court judge that the U.S. subsidiary of Agility may prevail in the case, 'but we’ll be a dead company.”
Bever said the case is about whether Agility should have kept discounts it received from vendors or refunded them to the government, according to a Bloomberg report Friday.
'It’s a contract case,' he said. 'It’s not about performance. Food was delivered to the client 99.6 percent of the time. It’s not an issue about whether the prices were charged were fair.”
But prosecutors have said the case is precisely about the way Agility priced its services, alleging the government has been systematically overbilled by at least $68 million on two contracts worth $8.5 billion to Agility. The second of those contracts is due to expire in December. Nelan told the court that Agility is still overbilling the government on the current contract.
The two sides were reportedly close to a settlement as recently as April, but any agreement apparently centered on Agility not being excluded from future Defense logistics contract bids. Agility (then PWC) built its reputation and revenue base on its defense logistics division, but has since widely expanded its commercial division to be a major global player.
Tarek Sultan, the company's chief executive, recently said the company would be moving away from its previous dependence on defense logistics revenue, a move he deemed necessary due to the looming withdrawal of U.S. troops in the Middle East.
