Fortinet has agreed to a $545,000 settlement after acknowledging that a former employee had product labels changed to make the items appear compliant with Federal procurement law.
The agreement between the Sunnyvale, Calif. based cybersecurity vendor and the U.S. government – which was announced Friday night- stated that, between January 2009 and fall 2016, a now-terminated Fortinet employee responsible for supply chain management directed certain employees and contractors to alter product labels so that no country of origin is listed, or to include the phrases “Designed in the United States and Canada,” or “Assembled in the United States.”
A portion of the products with changed labels were resold through distributors and subsequent resellers to U.S. government end users, the settlement stated. The label alternation meant all the items appeared to be compliant with the Trade Agreements Act (TAA), which mandates that products on government contracts be manufactured or “substantially transformed” in the U.S. or another designated country.
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The agreement settled a January 2016 lawsuit against…
