CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
Exec
Sues ArmorGroup Over Lax Security at Kabul Embassy
23 Corporate Crime Reporter 35, September 10, 2009
James Gordon says ArmorGroup unlawfully retaliated against him for blowing the
whistle on lax security at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Gordon, the former director of operations for ArmorGroup North America (AGNA), filed a whistleblower relation lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C.
The lawsuit alleges that the company violated the False Claims Act by retaliating against Gordon after he blew the whistle on wrongdoing in connection with a company contract to provide security services at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and the U.S. Naval base in Bahrain.
The lawsuit alleges that Gordon “investigated, attempted to stop, and reported a myriad of serious violations committed by ArmorGroup.”
“I am filing suit today to hold ArmorGroup accountable for the blatant disregard of its obligations to ensure the safety and security of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul,” Gordon said. “In an industry where good people are required to face extreme risk on a daily basis, it is essential that those companies who disregard the rules be removed as they not only endanger their own staff but also endanger the mission, all in order to increase profit.”
Gordon, a New Zealand citizen, began work for ArmorGroup in Baghdad.
He was promoted several times and landed at AGNA’s corporate headquarters in McLean, Virginia.
In 2007, Gordon was tasked with taking over the Kabul embassy contract.
“For months, I fought with corporate management to bring that contract into compliance,” Gordon said. “In response, I was marginalized and vilified, stripped of all responsibilities and ultimately given no option but to leave.”
“I was driven out of the company for one simple reason: I tried to fulfill AGNA’s contractual obligation to protect the embassy with a professional guard force and to admit to the State Department when AGNA didn’t live up to that obligation,” Gordon said.
“The corporate executives at ArmorGroup took just the opposite approach,” Gordon said. “Their goal was to perform the contract as cheaply as possible. Their goal was to do everything they could to prevent the State Department from discovering their multiple contract violations and operational shortcomings. Their goal was to maximize their profits, provide a fig leaf of security at the Embassy and pray to God that nobody got killed.”
Gordon said that from day one the guard force at the Embassy was chronically understaffed.
Gordon described an atmosphere of “complete lawlessness” at the Embassy.
One of the most egregious episodes of misconduct and corporate cover-up took place in November 2007 when an AGNA worker who was responsible for maintaining all weapons “had to be forcibly removed from a brothel in Kabul during work hours.”
A U.S. law – the Trafficking in Victims Protection Act – prohibits contractors from procuring commercial sex while working on the contract.
“Many of the prostitutes in Kabul are young Chinese girls who were taken against their will to Kabul for sexual exploitation,” Gordon said.
“It was disturbing enough that we had to drag the AGNA worker out of a brothel during working hours,” Gordon said. “What transpired next was even more alarming. When I ordered the worker’s termination, he told us that he could not be terminated because the AGNA medic and program manager himself had frequented brothels with him.”
“I immediately notified AGNA’s president of my plans to deploy either myself or my deputy to Kabul to conduct an investigation,” Gordon said. “My plans were promptly shut down by ArmorGroup International in London, which – contrary to U.S. law prohibiting foreign companies from directing or influencing activities on a classified contract – insisted on conducting the investigation themselves.”
Gordon says that the headquarters office “whitewashed” the investigation.
“As my protests grew louder and my reports to the State Department continued, AGNA officials became furious with me and decided to get rid of me,” Gordon said.
“Learning from the mistakes they committed with James Sauer and Peter Martino, who sued AGNA for illegally firing them, AGNA decided to make my life so unbearable that I would quit.”
“With my career derailed and my reputation shredded, AGNA forced me to leave on February 29, 2008,” Gordon said.
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