Evraz NA, a Russian-owned steel manufacturer operating out of the United States, is under investigation for having falsified steel hardness test data and then selling the products to American defense contractors.
Evraz is owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who is a close associate of Vladimir Putin. In 2023, the BBC reported that Abramovich had arranged a transfer deal worth $40 million to Putin. He is under personal sanctions by the UK and EU. Despite this, Evraz NA operates plants in Portland, Oregon, and Pueblo, Colorado.
According to reporting by Bloomberg, the falsification of harness testing data for manufacturer armored plates occurred from 2017 to 2019, during which time Portland workers faked data on “on an estimated 12,800 armor plates of various types“:
But for about two years, employees at Evraz North America Inc. , a Russian-owned steel plant operator in the US, falsified quality control test results on some armored plating for the vehicle’s manufacturer….
The incidents took place at an Evraz facility in Oregon from 2017 to 2019, according to Evraz’s probe and company officials, who said employees at the Portland plant skipped mandatory hardness tests and inputted fake results on an estimated 12,800 armor plates of various types. Those plates were labeled as tested and approved, though some later showed signs of cracking.
Instead of testing every plate, employees would input hardness ratings for some plates based on the results of others that had passed through the production line around the same time. The practice of manually recording false data was “widespread,” according to the Evraz report marked “confidential.”
Evraz then sold the falsified armor plates to Oshkosh Defense for use in various military vehicles, including the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) and Medium Tactical Vehicles. It is not clear how many other companies received the fraudulent materials from Evraz.
The Russian ownership of Evraz is well known within the US government and American industry. Some of the Evraz companies are under sanctions but continue to operate.
ABS-QE Certificates
Evraz holds ISO 9001 quality management system certification issued by Texas-based certification body ABS Quality Evaluations (ABS-QE). Despite an internal probe in 2019 and subsequent public reporting on the scandal, it does not appear that at any time ABS-QE withdrew the certificate.
The Evraz NA website includes a “certificate of conformance” issued by ABS-QE’s office in Spain for ISO 9001 and Pressure Equipment Directive 2014/68/EU. At first glance, the certificate appears to violate accreditation requirements, as it includes a non-accredited statement of conformity to ISO 9001. IAF rules prohibit a certification body from issuing non-accredited certificates for schemes where the CB holds accreditation. However, ABS-QE President Dominic Townsend explained that the European PED directive requires the certificate be issued by an EU member, in this case Spain, while also requiring a corresponding ISO 9001 certificate. The ISO 9001 certificate, he said, was issued by the US office. He then provided a copy of that.
There may still be an issue with the Spanish certificate referencing ISO 9001 in its text, since the Spanish certificate is not accredited. Accreditation Bodies, however, have largely ignored such potential violations, allowing CBs to ignore the IAF rule. Oxebridge has not pursued a complaint on the matter.
The accredited certificate for ISO 9001, however, shows the certification was initially issued in 1992. Had Evraz ever had their certificate withdrawn by ABS-QE, that date would have been updated. As a result, it appears that Evraz has held ISO 9001 certification consistently throughout the scandal and into the present day. That certificate bears the accreditation logo of US body ANAB.
Townsend has not yet replied to a request for clarification on this point.
With surprising regularity, ISO 9001 and AS9100 certified companies have been found to be involved in criminal fraud and test data falsification, impacting products sold throughout the supply chain. Nevertheless, accreditation bodies and certification bodies refuse to suspend or withdraw certifications, ignoring rules that govern the scheme. Then, with the certificates in hand, the bad acting companies gain access to more government and defense prime contracts, which often require ISO 9001 or AS9100 as a minimum requirement for bidding.
If the CBs and ABs enforced the scheme rules as required, these companies would lose their certifications and not have access to such contracts. The ISO certification scheme, however, is built on a hardened conflict of interest, whereby each level of the scheme pays the oversight body above it. Each level of the scheme has a financial disincentive to perform their oversight with independence and objectivity, thus allowing fraud to continue.
In multiple cases, ANAB has worked to cover up fraud by its CB clients, rather than withdraw accreditation. It has not withdrawn a single CB under its watch in over nine years.
ABS-QE previously certified Hercules Offshore, which suffered an oil rig blowout protector disaster similar to that of Deepwater Horizon. The company held onto its certificate despite the disaster and only lost it after declaring bankruptcy.
ABS issued ISO 9001 and RC14001 certificates for chemical storage to ITC Deer Park Terminal Tank Farm, which suffered a massive fuel storage fire in 2019.
The company Perceptics LLC suffered a data breach that led it to be debarred from all US Federal contracts for a “lack of business honesty or integrity,” yet held ISO 9o01 issued by ABS-QE.
It does not appear that ABS-QE participates in IAF CertSearch, despite a mandatory requirement to do so, and so Oxebridge could not verify if updated certificates had been issued to the latter two companies. The IAF is slowly putting such certificate verification capabilities behind a paywall, dramatically limiting public access to the information.
