WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- One of the nation's biggest contractors used three small companies as cover to get contracts set aside for small business, U.S. officials said Friday.
GTSI, headquarted in Herndon, Va., was suspended from bidding on new federal contracts, The Washington Post reported. The Defense Department and other government agencies have been responsible for about 90 percent of the firm's recent revenues, the newspaper said.
In a letter to Scott Friedlander, GTSI's chief executive, an SBA official said GTSI did all the work on contracts in which it was purportedly a subcontractor.
GTSI, founded in 1983, was legitimately eligible for contract set-asides designed to help small businesses get government work. But as the company grew larger, executives allegedly decided to game the system.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said it was seeking "strategic relationships with small businesses that benefit from the small business benefits." Federal officials say those relationships ended up crossing the line, with GTSI, for example, using e-mail addresses that made its employees look like they were working for its partners.
