Opinion ID: 4533874
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Museum Project

Text: In late 2016, FCA US decided to renovate the Chrysler Technology Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan (the “Museum Project”). Plaintiff was the Senior Buyer overseeing the renovation. The internal client (the Facilities department) suggested three contractors to participate in the bidding process—Barton Mallow, Walbridge, and Aristeo. Plaintiff suggested a fourth contractor— Roncelli, which was the contractor who originally built the Chrysler Technology Center. All four contractors submitted initial bids. Based on his experience with the Facilities group in a prior project, Plaintiff was concerned about the integrity of the bidding process for the Museum Project. According to Plaintiff, he had legitimate reasons to believe that someone in the Facilities group was sharing inside information about the bidding process with one of the competing contractors—Barton Mallow. Based on his 3 No. 19-1420, Kenya Spratt v. FCA US LLC suspicion of bias, Plaintiff decided to “massage” some of the numbers in the initial bid summary sheet. (R. 26-3, Pg. ID 222.) He increased some of the line item bids of Barton Mallow and Walbridge, but he did not alter the bids of Roncelli or Aristeo. As a result of his interference with the numbers, the initial bid summary wrongly indicated that the bidder in Column B (Roncelli) had the lowest overall bid. Prior to Plaintiff’s adjustment of the numbers, Barton Mallow had the lowest overall bid. Plaintiff submitted the falsified initial bid summary to Facilities. Based on the summary, Plaintiff and Facilities decided to eliminate Aristeo (the highest bidder both before and after Plaintiff’s adjustment of the numbers) and to hold a clarification meeting with the three remaining bidders. At this time, Facilities still did not know which contractor was associated with which bid on the initial summary. (Recall that the initial bid summary does not include the contractors’ identifying information in order to prevent bias.) However, around the time of the clarification meeting, the Facilities project manager for the Museum Project—Slavko Stajninger—discovered the actual bid numbers of Walbridge and Barton Mallow. Stajninger discovered Walbridge’s bid number because Walbridge accidentally included its name on an e-mail that included its bid information. Stajninger discovered Barton Marlow’s bid because Stajninger directly contacted a representative from Barton Marlow and asked him if his was the lowest bid on the initial summary sheet. Based on his answers, Stajninger discovered that some of the numbers on the initial summary sheet had been altered. This triggered an investigation into Plaintiff’s conduct. After the clarification meeting, the three competing contractors submitted their final bids for the Museum Project. Plaintiff compiled the bids into a final bid summary sheet, which was then used to select the contractor who would be awarded the job. Plaintiff did not alter any of the 4 No. 19-1420, Kenya Spratt v. FCA US LLC numbers on the final bid summary sheet. Roncelli had the lowest bid; Barton Mallow was second lowest; and Walbridge submitted the highest bid. Accordingly, Plaintiff recommended that Roncelli be awarded the job. However, the members of the Facilities group decided that they did not want to award the contact to Roncelli, even though Roncelli had the lowest final bid, and instead wanted to award the contract to Barton Mallow. Usually when this occurs (i.e., when the internal client decides not to award the contract to the lowest bidder), FCA US would document that decision and explain its reasoning in its SAP contract system. However, the company did not document why it selected Barton Mallow over Roncelli for the Museum Project.