Blackwater Worldwide - Litigation and Legal Issues

Litigation and Legal Issues

See also: Helvenston et al. v. Blackwater Security

Xe was sued by the families of four contractors killed in Fallujah in March 2004. The families said they were suing not for financial damages, but for the details of their sons' and husbands' deaths, saying Xe had refused to supply these details, and that in its "zeal to exploit this unexpected market for private security men," the company "showed a callous disregard for the safety of its employees." On February 7, 2007, four family members testified in front of the House Government Reform Committee. They asked that Xe be held accountable for future negligence of employees' lives, and that federal legislation be drawn up to govern contracts between the Department of Defense and defense contractors. Xe has counter-sued the lawyer representing the empty estates of the deceased for $10 million on the grounds the lawsuit was contractually prohibited from ever being filed. In January 2011, U.S. district judge James C. Fox dismissed the suit after no progress was made in court-ordered arbitration.

On November 27, 2004 an aircraft operated by Presidential Airways and owned by its sister company, Blackwater AWS, crashed in Afghanistan; it had been a contract flight for the United States Air Force en route from Bagram to Farah. All aboard, three soldiers and three civilian crew members, were killed. Several relatives of the victims filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Presidential in October 2005.

Two former employees claimed that Xe Services defrauded the federal government on a security contract given after Hurricane Katrina. However, in May 2011, a judge tossed out that allegation.

In June 2011, a federal judge dismissed Erik Prince from a civil lawsuit alleging that Blackwater defrauded the federal government of money when billing it for work in Iraq and Afghanistan. In August 2011, a jury ruled in favor of the security firm, rejecting two former employees' claims that the company overbilled the State Department for its work in Iraq and Afghanistan.