A class action lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against various shipbuilders that have built military vessels, various specialized consulting firms that helped design, refit, and maintain ships in the U.S. fleet, and a recruiting firm that recruited naval engineers, that alleges, among other things, that executives in charge of hiring at various companies in the naval engineering industry maintained an illegal “gentlemen’s agreement” not to actively recruit, or “poach” each other’s naval architects and/or marine engineers, in violation of antitrust laws.

According to an antitrust class action complaint, the alleged no-poach “gentlemen’s agreement” allegedly suppressed wages for naval architects and marine engineers below those that would have existed in a competitive market and deprived these professionals of hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.

Impacted professionals include naval architects and marine engineers who were employed at any time after January 1, 2000, by various shipbuilders and specialized consulting firms in the industry, including:

• General Dynamics Corporation
• Bath Iron Works Corporation
• Electric Boat Corporation
• General Dynamics Information Technology, Inc.
• Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc.
• Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company
• Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc.
• HII Fleet Support Group LLC (f/k/a AMSEC LLC)
• Rosenblatt & Son, Inc.
• HII Mission Technologies Corp.
• Alion Science and Technology Corporation
• John J. McMullen & Associates
• Marinette Marine Corporation
• Bollinger Shipyards, LLC
• Gibbs & Cox, Inc.
• Serco, Inc.
• Technology Financing Inc.
• CACI International Inc.
• Computer Sciences Corporation
• CSC Advanced Marine Center
• The Columbia Group, Inc.
• Columbia Research Corporation
• Thor Solutions LLC
• Tridentis, LLC
• BMT Designers & Planners, Inc.
• NASSCO Holdings Incorporated
• Austal USA LLC
• BAE Systems Ship Repair Inc.

Public fleet naval architects and marine engineers (collectively, “naval engineers”) design and build the U.S.’s warships and other “public fleet” vessels. While some naval engineers work directly for the federal government, most naval engineers are employed by a group of private contractors (about 40% of naval engineers work for shipbuilders) and consulting firms (about 40% work for engineering consultancies) who are hired by the Navy, the Coast Guard, and other federal and state entities.

Naval architects are responsible for naval vessels’ design, including the form, structure, performance and stability of hulls. Naval architects have specialized knowledge of hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, vessel motion physics, mechanics, strength of materials, and design of structures.

Marine engineers (also known as marine design engineers, marine mechanical engineers, specialized electrical engineers, HVAC engineers, and structural engineers) design onboard ship systems, including those related to propulsion mechanics, power generation, heating, air conditioning, ventilation, water distillation and purification, cargo handling, steering, and fuel.

If you worked as a naval architect or marine engineer for any of the companies listed above at any time after January 1, 2000, you may have been underpaid and may be entitled to recover financial damages as well as potentially a court approved service award, if appropriate, at no cost to you.

If you would like to learn more about this matter, you are encouraged to contact us at jgrabar@grabarlaw.com, or call 267-507-6085.