IAAC, ANAB, IAF and NIST Probed For Crony Capitalism, Accreditation Fraud, and Antitrust Violations

2024-12-23 11:16:59 Legal / Law

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Inspiring candidate for U.S. Senate (I-Conn) asks the FTC to investigate an accreditation scam costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
Washington, D.C. (USA), June 2nd, 2017 -- The American Board of Accredited Certifications (ABAC) is seeking the assistance of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate three privately-owned Organizations: the Inter-American Accreditation Cooperation (IAAC), The ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB), and International Accreditation Forum (IAF) for allegedly conspiring with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce.

ABAC said the leadership of ANAB, IAF and IAAC should be investigated by the FTC for allegedly conspiring with NIST by utilizing government power and influence to implement an anti-competitive accreditation scheme designed to defraud U.S. businesses and American taxpayers of at least $2.5 billion during the years 2013 to 2017.

ABAC announced several months ago about its investigation of IAAC, ANAB and IAF for misleading U.S. businesses by falsely claiming official oversight that because it lacked impartiality. Accreditation is meaningless without impartial oversight. Details of the investigation has been released to the pubic at http://aboac.org/iaac-inter-american-accreditation-cooperation/

Daryl Guberman (http://www.darylguberman.com), CEO of G-PMC Group and potential candidate for United States Senate (I-CT) is asking the FTC's Bureau of Competition to investigate the alleged anti-competitive practices and collusion between IAAC, NIST, ANAB and IAF. The Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Act, both passed by Congress in 1914, give the Commission authority to enforce the antitrust laws. These laws prohibit anti competitive mergers and business practices that work to prevent hard-driving competition, such as monopolistic conduct, attempts to monopolize, and conspiracies in restraint of trade.

According to Guberman, concerns of IAAC?s certification practices have been brought to ABAC's attention after IAAC?s certification of the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board. The complaint cites the certification issued to ANAB is misleading and bogus because both organizations (IAAC and ANAB) are owned and/or managed by the same individual at the time known as Randy Dougherty. Public records show Dougherty is Vice President of ANAB as well as the Chairman of IAAC and former Chairman of the IAF and as of 2016 it?s treasurer at the time of the certification scheme between the organizations.

Within hours after the American Board of Accredited Certification announced it will seek FTC's assistance on its investigation, Guberman said ANAB appeared to have removed from its Web site the article indicating IAAC's certification of ANAB as seen here: http://www.dguberman.com/NIST_IAAC.pdf . The page that hosted the article is now being redirected to the home page. More suspiciously, Randy Dougherty's name is no longer found on the leadership page of the ANAB website; it appears to have been removed overnight and replaced with the names of several other individuals under the role of Vice President.

Although the article that announced IAAC's certification of ANAB has disappeared from the ANAB website, a snapshot of the article has been made available at https://postimg.io/image/4xzm9elfx. The snapshot includes a photograph of current IAAC Chairman Randy Dougherty being presented the certificate by Dougherty's collaborator, and former IAAC Chair Ileana Martinez, who just so happens to be employed by NIST (http://gsi.nist.gov/global/index.cfm/L1-2/L2-2/A-386) which is the government agency Guberman wants investigated for defrauding American taxpayers and Crony capitalism, a term describing an economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, or other forms of state interventionism.

As a NIST employee, Ms. Martinez is responsible for matters on global standards and coordination, and most notable she is involved in accreditation matters for the agency. Randy Dougherty, the Vice President of ANAB and Chairman of IAAC and Ileana Martinez, the prior chair of IAAC and a NIST employee appear to be the two key individuals behind the NIST-IAAC- ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board ANAB & IAF, accreditation scam. Ms Martinez has been replaced by Erik Puskar who is the new ANAB connection, according to Guberman. Numerous calls and emails to Puskar's office has gone unanswered.

"As a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce, NIST has no authority to join with IAAC and ANAB to restrain competition in the accreditation of quality management systems," said Guberman. He added, ?G-PMC Group, ABAC and its affiliates will continue to demand justice and expose any and all organizations and individuals engaged in capital cronyism, anti-competitive business practices, and those directly or indirectly restraining competition by spreading false information about ISO certification and accreditation.?

Guberman turned to face the the camera, and with a stern expression he concluded with a few last words, ?As a candidate for U.S. Senate, I pledge to remain steadfast in my commitment to cease all forms of favoritism between government officials and their business cronies in the quality management community. Such collusion is disgustingly UN-American, and I guarantee to all those involved, including their fruitcake cohorts, the corruption ends now.?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYSTPBic-qM&authuser=0

Press & Media Contact:
Daryl Guberman
Guberman-PMC
1538 W Broad St,
Stratford, CT 06615 - USA
203-556-1493
daryl@dguberman.com
http://www.dguberman.com