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About POGO's Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (FCMD)
The government awards contracts to companies with histories of misconduct such as contract fraud and environmental, ethics, and labor violations. In the absence of a centralized federal database listing instances of misconduct, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is providing such data. We believe that it will lead to improved contracting decisions and public access to information about how the government spends hundreds of billions of taxpayer money each year on goods and services. Report an instance of misconduct »
Ranking: 30
Textron, Inc.
Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) is a $10 billion multi-industry company operating in 33 countries with approximately 37,000 employees in continuing operations. The company leverages its global network of aircraft, industrial and finance businesses to provide customers with innovative solutions and services. Textron is known around the world for its powerful brands such as Bell Helicopter, Cessna Aircraft, Jacobsen, Kautex, Lycoming, E-Z-GO and Greenlee, among others.
Federal Contract $: $2514.6m
Total Number of Instances: 14
Total Misconduct dollar amount: $ 133.8m
- Annual Report
- Ethics Page
- Hoovers Profile
- Lobbying Information
- Political Activity
- Press Page
- SEC 10K
- Subsidiary List
- Website
- Contracting Information
Instances of Misconduct
1. Pantano Wash Hazardous Waste Disposal Settlement
A total of 23 companies, including General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Textron and Fluor, agreed to pay a total of $542,000 to resolve a series of hazardous-waste dumping claims. The settlement involves wastes brought to landfills along the Pantano Wash in Tucson, Arizona, a state Superfund site known as the Broadway Pantano Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund (WQARF) site. Complaints filed under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and Arizona’s Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund law accused the companies of having arranged for the disposal or transport of toxic wastes – including trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), and methylene chloride – to the landfill area from 1945 until the early 1970s. As part of the settlement, Textron agreed to pay $30,000.... more»
2. 2008 Helicopter Crash Wrongful Death
Bell Helicopter Textron settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of the children of Sandra Pearson, a flight nurse killed in a Decature County medical helicopter crash in August 2008. Pearson and two others were killed in a crash outside Indianapolis when the rotor blade, manufactured by Bell Helicopter Textron, came off their Bell 206 Longranger helicopter. The National Transportation Safety Board found that the flawed main rotor blade had broken apart just after take-off.... more»
3. Failure to Test Equipment
“Textron Inc. will pay the United States $100,000 to settle allegations it failed to properly test locknuts it manufactured for military aircraft… Textron said its Cherry Division facility in Santa Ana, California, failed to properly perform stress embrittlement tests on certain flyweight nuts and that only samples of 12-point nuts were inspected by dye penetrant and/or magnetic particle methods although the contract required that all nuts be inspected by those methods. In some instances, inspection documents were fabricated to avoid detection.”... more»
4. Manier v. Textron Inc. (Inflating Labor Costs)
Textron Aerostructures, a former subsidiary of Textron Inc., agreed to pay $9.8 million dollars to the United States to settle allegations that it defrauded the government by inflating labor costs on a contract to construct wings for the Air Force's B-1B Bomber. The federal qui tam suit was filed under the False Claims Act.... more»
5. Violation of Federal Aviation Administration Hazardous Materials Regulations
According to a U.S. Department of Transportation document, in 1998, Bell Helicopter Textron “offered hazardous materials improperly classed, described, packaged, marked, labeled, or in a condition unsuitable for shipment,” in violation of Federal Aviation Administration rules.... more»
6. Violation of Petroleum Product Storage Regulations
According to a document from the State of Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, on April 7, 2004, Textron was “in violation of RIDEM's Rules and Regulations for Underground Storage Facilities Used for Petroleum Products and Hazardous Materials ("the UST Regulations") and the Rules and Regulations for Hazardous Waste Management ("the Hazardous Waste Regulations")… The Respondent was ordered in the NOV to achieve compliance with the UST and Hazardous Waste Regulations within 30 days of receipt of the NOV. A penalty in the amount of $10,736.00 was assessed in the NOV.” The following September, the state and Textron executed a Consent Agreement to resolve the enforcement action. Since Textron was found to have already achieved compliance with the order portion of the NOV, the penalty was reduced to $8,440.... more»
7. TH-67 and OH-58 Program Mischarging
According to the October 2006 newsletter of the U.S. Army Legal Services Agency, Procurement Fraud Branch, Contract & Fiscal Law Division: “In July 2006, Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. paid approximately $6.4 million to the Army to resolve a pending cost mischarging issue. In August 2004, Bell Helicopter made a voluntary disclosure of possibly fraudulent conduct to the DoD IG. The general nature of the disclosure was that Bell may have overcharged the Government for subcontractor costs, failed to properly document material costs, and used improper source selection criteria when selecting subcontractors for the OH-58 and TH-67 programs. After coordination with DOJ, DODIG admitted Bell into their Voluntary Disclosure Program. The Voluntary Disclosure is proceeding. Bell has taken corrective action and repaid the Army $6.4 million.” In May 2010, the Department of Justice announced that Bell submitted additional reports detailing similar overcharges arising from intra-company transactions with Bell Helicopter Textron Canada Limited and paid an additional $3.7 million. According to DOJ, the total Bell has paid to resolve civil claims arising from its cost charging practices currently stands at $16.6 million.... more»
8. Piper Cherokee Airplane Crash
A Pennsylvania jury handed down an $89 million verdict against Textron’s Lycoming aircraft engine division, which was sued for a 1999 Piper PA-32-260 Cherokee accident in which three people were killed and one was seriously injured. The jury awarded $24.7 million in compensatory damages and $64 million in punitive damages, finding that Lycoming had manufactured a defective carburetor and failed to disclose the defects to the Federal Aviation Administration. According to a statement sent to POGO by Textron Systems: “Lycoming is disappointed with the verdict. Lycoming will aggressively pursue post trial motions and, if necessary, aggressively pursue an appeal.”... more»
9. Mock v. Textron (Age Discrimination)
Gary Mock filed a lawsuit against Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., alleging age discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Mock was 55 years old when Bell Helicopter terminated his employment in 2003 and replaced him with a younger employee. In March 2007, a jury found in favor of Mock. He was eventually awarded $225,810 in damages and $332,229 in attorneys' fees and costs.... more»
10. Unauthorized Chemical Treatment Activity
On March 1, 1999, the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Textron Aerospace Fastener Division of Textron, Inc. entered into a consent order concerning Textron's alleged unauthorized chemical treatment activity. Under the consent decree, Textron paid an administrative fee of $1001.... more»
11. Defective Crankshaft Design
Interstate Southwest Ltd. sued Textron Inc.’s Lycoming engines division alleging Lycoming was responsible for several incidents between 1999 and 2001 involving small aircraft equipped with Lycoming engines that failed when the planes’ crankshafts broke in flight. Interstate Southwest supplied Lycoming with crankshaft forgings but claimed Lycoming’s crankshaft design was defective and that Lycoming fraudulently concealed information about the failures. In 2005, a Grimes County, Texas jury found Lycoming liable for fraud and ordered it to pay Interstate $96 million in damages. In November 2007, a Texas appeals court partly affirmed and partly reversed the trial court verdict. It agreed that the crankshaft failures were caused solely by a defect in Lycoming’s design and nullified Lycoming’s counterclaim, but the court also set aside the damages award.... more»
12. Massachusetts Military Reservation Cleanup
The federal and Massachusetts governments reached a $7.7 million settlement with Textron Systems Corp. to clean up the area around the Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR) on Cape Cod. For three decades, Textron used portions of the MMR to test munitions, which is believed to have tainted the soil with perchlorate and other substances and contaminated the groundwater. Textron will pay $1.3 million to the state and federal natural resource trustees, $5.6 million to the Army, and $800,000 to the Environmental Protection Agency. Textron will also remove contaminated soil, structures and debris from the area.... more»
13. Oil For Food Program Kickbacks - Criminal Investigation
Textron settled charges that employees of its French subsidiaries paid kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government during the United Nations' Oil-For-Food program. The employees were alleged to have paid roughly $600,000 in kickbacks by inflating the price of contracts to provide industrial pumps, gears, and other equipment by 10 percent before submitting them for U.N. approval and concealing from the U.N. the fact that the price contained the cost of the illicit payments. In exchange for not filing criminal charges, the Department of Justice will require Textron to cooperate with investigators and pay a $1.15 million fine. The Oil-For-Food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, was established to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Under the program, money from Iraqi oil sales was to have been used for humanitarian goods such as food and medicine. However, there were accusations of widespread corruption and abuse, with hundreds of foreign companies alleged to have colluded with Hussein’s regime to bilk the program of billions of dollars. See related Textron misconduct instance, "Oil For Food Program Kickbacks - SEC Investigation."... more»
14. Oil For Food Program Kickbacks - SEC Investigation
Textron settled charges that employees of its French subsidiaries paid kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government during the United Nations' Oil-For-Food program. The employees were alleged to have paid roughly $600,000 in kickbacks by inflating the price of contracts to provide industrial pumps, gears, and other equipment by 10 percent before submitting them for U.N. approval and concealing from the U.N. the fact that the price contained the cost of the illicit payments. In settling the Securities and Exchange Commission civil injunctive action, Textron was ordered to disgorge $2,284,579 in profits plus $450,461.68 in pre-judgment interest, and to pay a civil penalty of $800,000. The Oil-For-Food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, was established to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Under the program, money from Iraqi oil sales was to have been used for humanitarian goods such as food and medicine. However, there were accusations of widespread corruption and abuse, with hundreds of foreign companies alleged to have colluded with Hussein’s regime to bilk the program of billions of dollars. See related Textron misconduct instance, "Oil For Food Program Kickbacks - Criminal Investigation."... more»
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