In what could be one of the final motions in the case before it heads toward a trial, the ex-chief financial officer of Mission Support and Tests Services repeated his argument that a federal anti-corruption law aimed at public companies applies to the private contractor, and that he filed whistleblower disclosures about financial impropriety at the contractor in time for the federal government to consider them.
That’s according to a Friday filing with the U.S. District Court in Nevada by Stephen Musin, the former chief financial officer of Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS): the National Nuclear Security Administration’s prime contractor at the Nevada National Security Site.
Musin sued in 2019, alleging he was fired in retaliation for revealing financial misconduct at MSTS, including by Mark Martinez, its president, in 2018. Musin said his subsequent whistleblower complaints to the federal government were protected by the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-corruption law of 2001, which is aimed at publicly traded companies.
Mission Support and Test Services “is undisputedly an affiliate of three publicly traded corporations,” Musin wrote in a Friday filing opposing the prime’s motion to dismiss the case. “The three publicly traded affiliates have control over MSTS. Defendant Martinez, as the top executive of MSTS is also expressly covered under the provisions of the statute.”
Attorneys for Martinez and MSTS have denied that either is covered by Sarbanes-Oxley, and that Musin in any event did not lodge his complaints with the federal government within statutory deadlines. Musin’s Friday motion to deny rejected that last claim.
According to Musin’s latest amended complaint in the case, Honewell owns 40% of MSTS, while Jacobs Engineering and Huntington Ingalls Industries respectively own stakes of 37% and 23%. “Any ownership interest greater than 10% is considered to be an ‘affiliate,’” the complaint says.
Unless Judge Jennifer Dorsey decides the case sooner based on motions already filed, preparations for a trial could begin in mid-March, according to the most recent scheduling order in the case.
