Dive Brief:

• Winning a $39.6 million highway contract seven years ago is costing Manafort Brothers Inc. of Plainville, Conn., $2.4 million to settle a civil case and avoid criminal prosecution by the federal government.
• To qualify for the contract award, Manafort told the Connecticut Department of Transportation that $3 million of the work would go to a disadvantaged business enterprise in relocating two miles of Route 72 and rebuilding several miles of secondary roads.
• When prosecutors and investigators from the U.S. attorney's office, the FBI and the U.S. Labor and Transportation departments announced the agreement Monday, they said Manafort hired subcontractors for the work the disadvantaged business enterprise was supposed to do and used it as a pass-through for payments.

Dive Insight:

The project, which Manafort got officially in August 2007, included state and federal money, making deception a federal matter. The company had to set up several internal processes for monitoring disadvantaged business enterprise hiring and bidding and training employees, and it agreed to "removing" the individuals involved, the statement said. Prosecutors also said they are done with the company but are continuing to investigate individuals.