The federal government is exacting a little payback from Global Computer Enterprises in the form of a False Claims Act settlement.

After GCE applied for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 in September, the Labor Department and the General Services Administration had to pay the company $23 million to get access to financial systems and data.

Now the Justice Department is collecting $9 million back after GCE and its owner Raed Muslimani agreed to settle charges brought against them.

DoJ said in a May 7 press release that GCE and Muslimani do not admit to any wrong doing, but agreed to pay the $9 million fine.

Justice brought up charges against GCE and Muslimani claiming the company “misrepresented and/or concealed that it was utilizing engineers and other employees who were expressly prohibited from working on the contracts due to their citizenship/immigration statuses,” in contracts with Labor, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), GSA, the Secret Service and the Coast Guard.

Court documents say the FBI began investigating GCE in 2013 after allegations surfaced that the company used foreign nationals and had other violations on contracts that were prohibited.

An email to GCE lawyers was not immediately returned. Muslimani’s new company, Serendipity Now, which his doing business as Data Analytics, still holds contracts to run USASpending.gov and the Federal Procurement Data System- Next Generation. A message left on a generic company voicemail box was not immediately returned either.

As of May 11, court documents say GCE’s bankruptcy proceeding continue and lists more than 150 companies or people claiming GCE or Muslimani owe them money.

Justice reported in fiscal 2014 that it collected $24 billion in fines from criminal and civil cases. Of that $24 billion, Justice says it collected a record $5.69 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud and false claims against the government last year.

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