On December 12, 2025, the Department of Justice announced that it had reached a $2,092,371.92 settlement with KOKUSAI DENKI Electric America, Inc., formerly known as Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark, LLC (“Hitachi Comark”), to resolve allegations from Gregg Shapiro’s whistleblower client that Hitachi Comark fraudulently obtained a $1,342,232 second draw Paycheck Protection Program loan. Gregg filed the whistleblower’s False Claims Act qui tam complaint less than eight months ago, in April 2025.
Under the second draw of the PPP, a business could be eligible to receive a forgivable loan of up to $2 million, but not if it and its affiliates had more than 300 employees.
In the settlement, Hitachi Comark admitted that:
– When it applied for its second draw PPP loan in January 2021, it represented that it was eligible for the loan and had 67 employees.
– At that time, Hitachi Comark was a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. (“Kokusai”), a company based in Tokyo, and Kokusai had more than 300 employees.
The whistleblower will receive approximately $209,000 of the settlement amount.
The whistleblower and his counsel commend the expeditious work of Assistant United States Attorney Brian LaMacchia on this matter.