A Saratoga-based tech startup and its CEO have agreed to pay $630,000 to the U.S. Department of Justice to settle allegations that they had violated the terms of a federal grant from the National Science Foundation.
The terms of the grant included a restriction on working full-time outside the company, eBibelot, which describes itself as a software developer on a LinkedIn page associated with a company by that name.
The company’s CEO Melody Fallah-Khair was identified on the grant application as the project’s “principal investigator,” which the grant requires restrictions from working elsewhere for more than about 20 hours per week throughout its duration.
The civil complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California alleged that Fallah-Khair was working at least 40 hours at a multi-national telecommunications company from May 2019 to April 2021. It alleged that multiple post-award certifications were falsely submitted, including one that explicitly asked her to list any outside employment, according to a news release Monday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.
A LinkedIn message sent to Fallah-Khair late Tuesday seeking comment was not immediately returned.
The complaint was resolved without Fallah-Khair or the company admitting liability, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.