I have been following with some interest a lawsuit against a parking company in Florida. Seems they were accused of falsifying insurance invoices and billed tens of thousands of dollars to their customers. You can read about it here.
An auditor for the parking company discovered the problem, reported it up the line, was told that perhaps there had been a problem but it would be fixed. He wasn’t happy, and called the customer. He was fired. The customer, Broward County, where Ft. Lauderdale Airport and the Port of the Everglades are located, sued the parking company for $47 million. It was settled out of court for $6 million. There is a gag order and no one can talk about the settlement. The parking company denied any wrong doing. The Broward County board of supervisors elected to not allow the parking company to rebid the contracts at the airport and port, and removed them as of the settlement.
The ‘winner’ in all this was the auditor, who received $1 million as a reward for being a whistleblower.
In the end, the operator paid a small part of the lawsuit, its parent company was purchased by another and became part of the largest parking company on the planet, and, life goes on.
JVH
Those involved were USA Parking, a subsidiary of Central Parking, Central, and Standard who just purchased Central and asked for and received an “expeditious resolution” of the issue.
