Kuwait's Agility denies US gov't fraud charges

Agility, the Kuwaiti storage and logistics provider, pleaded not guilty to charges it defrauded the US government on a multi-billion dollar contract to feed troops overseas. Agility, also known as Public Warehousing Co, denied on Tuesday in federal court in Atlanta accusations that it filed false invoices or conspired to pay premium prices to inflate its profit. Prosecutors said Agility encouraged companies it did business with to inflate costs through practices such as putting hamburgers in unnecessarily expensive packaging. The estimated cost of the US contract with Agility at the time it was signed was $4.66 billion, according to the November 2009 indictment.The final bill came to $8.6 billion, the government said. Agility bought food and transported it to U.S. soldiers in Kuwait and Iraq, prosecutors said.The investigation into the company and its suppliers is continuing, federal prosecutors have said.Agility officials had no immediate comment on the plea after today’s hearing. Lawyers for both sides declined to comment.The case against Agility had been slowed by the company’s claim that it wasn’t properly notified of the charges it faced in the US. Agility recently lost a federal appeals court decision on that issue. From / Arabian Business News