Misrepresentations and criminal liability in project reporting : a case study of the failed Virgil C. summer project
Ojiako, Udechukwu (2023) Misrepresentations and criminal liability in project reporting : a case study of the failed Virgil C. summer project. Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction, 15 (3). 04523023. ISSN 1943-4162 (https://doi.org/10.1061/JLADAH.LADR-956)
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Abstract
The misreporting of project information during the delivery of construction and engineering aligned projects has received substantial attention in the literature. While such intentional misreporting appears in only a minority of instances, its occurrence can expose construction and engineering-aligned companies and their principal officers to legal jeopardy, criminal liability, and sanction. To explore this phenomenon, this study conducts a case review of the failed Virgil C. Summer nuclear expansion project and the ensuing civil and criminal complaints against personnel at both SCANA (the client/owner) and Westinghouse Electric (the primary contractor). The findings suggest that various individual, project, organizational, and attributable factors drive project status information misreporting. The findings also suggest that criminal liability arises from its practice due to the economic harm that such practice causes. The originality of the paper is threefold. First, it espouses a perspective of intentional misreporting as fraudulent misrepresentation not previously examined in construction and engineering-aligned project scholarship. Second, it examines the different categories of factors driving such misreporting. Third, utilizing applicable common law legal tests, the study examines the impact of such practices within the framework of corporate illegality.
ORCID iDs
Ojiako, Udechukwu ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0506-2115;-
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Item type: Article ID code: 88017 Dates: DateEvent1 August 2023Published28 April 2023Published Online25 February 2023AcceptedSubjects: Technology > Building construction
LawDepartment: Faculty of Engineering > Design, Manufacture and Engineering Management Depositing user: Pure Administrator Date deposited: 31 Jan 2024 12:10 Last modified: 02 Dec 2024 01:29 Related URLs: URI: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/88017