Pentagon Partially Lifts Ban on Fairchild’s Voi-Shan Unit
The Pentagon has partially lifted its contracting suspension against Culver City-based Voi-Shan, a unit of Fairchild Industries that produces aerospace rivets, nuts and bolts, the company said Tuesday.
Voi-Shan was suspended on April 28 by the Defense Logistics Agency from receiving new contracts, the result of a federal criminal investigation into whether the company was faking tests.
The Pentagon’s action, which was taken Monday, lifts the suspension on Voi-Shan’s facility in Redondo Beach. However, a suspension remains in effect for the company’s facility in Chatsworth, which is the subject of the federal probe.
Employees have made a number of allegations against the company, including reports that when a sample batch of rivets failed to pass a test, the company would conduct new tests until it could pass.
The federal probe began after employees filed a False Claims Act lawsuit, which allows individuals to sue on behalf of the government. That suit is still under court seal, but details of some of the allegations were revealed in a search warrant affidavit.
Employees at Voi-Shan were using a quality-approval stamp for an “Inspector 11” even though no such person existed, a federal investigator alleged. The affidavit said the employees would recycle test forms, white out old numbers and then write in new, phony ones.
The company earlier said the Chatsworth facility accounts for about $53 million in sales. Fasteners account for $175 million in sales at Fairchild.
Chantilly, Va.-based Fairchild has said it is confident of the safety of its products and the integrity of its employees. It also said customers and distributors have tested Voi-Shan products and found no failures.
