A group of wholesale steel distributors will pay more than $3.3 million to settle allegations that they made false statements in order to secure federal loans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The seven corporations in question, each part of Georgia-based steel company Allied Crawford, are incorporated across seven separate states, including Virginia, where federal prosecutors investigated the matter.

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According to the Justice Department, they received more than $2.7 million combined in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program, which was designed to ensure that businesses could keep their doors open and continue paying their employees amid the pandemic.

The companies, however, were actually ineligible to receive those loans, prosecutors claimed. They said company officials falsely certified that they were eligible for the loans — both on their initial applications, and on subsequent filings for the forgiveness of the loans in 2021.

The case began with a lawsuit filed by a whistleblower under the provisions of the federal False Claims Act; that whistleblower will receive a 10% share of the settlement.

The U.S. government reportedly allocated nearly $6 trillion in emergency spending during the pandemic, and although experts broadly agreed that the funding helped keep the economy afloat, it also created opportunities for fraud — investigations of which persist some six years later.

Prosecutors noted that the settlement does not include a determination of civil liability.

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Last week, Taiwanese auto supplier Minth announced plans to invest some $430 million to breathe new life into a century-old steel mill site in Alabama.

The Minth Group is a massive company with nearly 28,000 global employees spanning 78 plants, making trim and structural automotive parts. The company says it is the largest supplier of battery enclosures and body structure components in the world, making parts for more than 80 automotive brands, including Chevrolet, Ford, GMC, Jeep, and Lucid.

The Minth Group bought the former Republic Steel 400-acre brownfield site in Gadsden, Alabama, about 60 miles northeast of Birmingham.

The project will become Minth's largest campus and is expected to create 1,325 jobs. Initially, the plant should bring a few hundred jobs, but new roles will be added as operations grow. The facility will produce plastic and aluminum components for Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama, and for Kia in West Point, Georgia.

Minth said the new location will help serve North American customers, including those transitioning to electric and advanced vehicles.

Minth’s U.S. operations are part of Minth North America, with regional headquarters in Wixom, Michigan, and two other locations in Michigan and Tennessee.

The Gadsden site is expected to be a flagship U.S. facility with nearly 1 million square feet of manufacturing space. The company plans to renovate and expand the site. The new jobs will average $49,000 in annual wages.

When the steel plant shuttered in August 2000, some 1,800 workers lost their jobs. The Gulf States Steel plant had been in operation since 1903 and was acquired by Republic Steel in 1937.

In a statement, William Chin, the son of Minth’s founder and the company’s chief strategy officer, said, “From rubble to renewal, from depression to prosperity – this site, once a reminder of jobs that moved overseas, now represents a bright future ... It’s not rubber and steel anymore; it’s plastic and aluminum.”

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A leading global food manufacturer has reportedly overhauled its employee bonus program as part of a broader effort to revamp its corporate culture.

Under the new structure at Nestlé, people familiar with the move recently told Bloomberg, workers deemed “exemplary” could get bonuses of up to 150% of company targets, while those at the other end of the spectrum, or “unsatisfactory,” would get a maximum of 50% of the target — or no bonus at all.

The top bonuses were previously capped at 130%, but more importantly, according to the report, the changes represented a dramatic shift from a culture in which nearly all 271,000 employees tended to get bonuses of at least 80% of company targets.

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