Trinity Industries is the manufacturer of a product you see every day-the guardrails in the middle of highways, freeways, toll ways, and byways around the country. However, Trinity will be paying \$525 million to the United States Treasury and Joshua Harman, one of his competitors. The story of intrigue, whistleblowing, and a small competitor finishing first began in 2005.

Trinity was the manufacturer of the ET-Plus guardrail system, the preferred system used by state and local governments in road construction. However, in 2005, Trinity made a change to its guardrail, a change that could cause the system to fail and result in the parts of the guardrail piercing cars involved in accidents. The design change to the rails actually resulted in more and greater injuries to drivers and passengers and greater vehicle damage. While the rails were designed to prevent cross-overs and additional vehicle involvement in accidents, they were wreaking havoc on the roadways. The change did result in a \(\$ 2\) saving for every rail for Trinity.

Enter competitor Joshua Harman who discovered that the design change was not disclosed to the Federal Highway Administration, a notification that is required in order to have the rails certified for highway use. Indeed, Trinity had conducted safety tests of the ET-Plus guardrails but never shared those test results with the federal government. The five tests concluded that the ET- 5 Plus failed the tests. The federal government does not build the highways (state and local governments do), but these government agencies are not eligible for federal funds if they do not build roads in compliance with federal standards and requirements. And if a company receives federal funds or reimbursement and has not complied with standards or provided false information, it is liable to the federal government under the False Claims Act.

Mr. Harman reported the Trinity change to the federal government as a whistleblower in 2012. And he filed suit under the False Claims Act, a suit that the federal government was eligible to join, but did not. In addition, after Mr. Harman reported that there had been no disclosure of the design change, Trinity still did not disclose the information about the five failed tests. \({ }^{33}\) On October 21, 2014, a Texas jury awarded \$175 million to Mr. Harman, an amount that is tripled under the False Claims Act. Mr. Harman will receive about \(\$ 150\) million even though he was a competitor and not an employee because he reported fraud to the federal government........

 Discussion Questions
1. Explain the False Claims Act and who gets how much when a contractor makes false statements or fraudulent claims for federal monies.
2. List the ethical categories you see in the conduct of the parties in this case.
3. What lessons about competition and ethics can a business learn from this case?