Axion Specialty Contracting LLC has been fined $1.3 million for anti-trust conspiracy. They are the third company sentenced in an ongoing investigation into the insulation contracting industry, per a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release.
In November 2019, the Department of Justice created the Procurement Collusion Strike Force, a joint law enforcement effort to root out and prosecute antitrust crimes and similar schemes that impact government procurement, grant, and program funding at all levels of government.
According to the guilty plea, beginning in 2012, Axion worked with at least six other companies and individuals to fix prices in competing for government contracts in Connecticut. Two of the other companies have already been sentenced, and the rest have been convicted but await sentencing.
In the release, FBI special agent David Sundberg said, “The [organization] takes allegations of project or construction fraud and bid rigging very seriously and will expend all appropriate resources to investigate such matters fully.”
The Antitrust Division’s New York Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut, the FBI New Haven Office and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service’s New Haven Resident Agency investigated this specific conspiracy.