SAN FRANCISCO – A South Bay tech startup and its CEO can pay greater than half 1,000,000 {dollars} to resolve allegations they improperly obtained federal grant funds, prosecutors mentioned.
In 2019, Saratoga-based eBibelot and its CEO, Melody Fallah-Khair, submitted an utility for a small enterprise innovation grant from the Nationwide Science Basis, certifying that Fallah-Khair would function the venture’s principal investigator and preserve major employment with eBibelot, in line with the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace.
The phrases of the grant required that principal investigators commit their major employment to the small enterprise on the time of the award and all through the award interval, prosecutors mentioned.
Prosecutors alleged Fallah-Khair started working full-time for a multinational telecom firm shortly after submitting the grant utility and devoted at the least 40 hours per week to this outdoors employment from Could 2019 by way of April 2021.
The tech startup didn’t disclose its principal investigator’s full-time outdoors employment in post-award certifications to the NSF, violating the False Claims Act, prosecutors mentioned.
Below a settlement settlement introduced Monday, eBibelot and Fallah-Khair can pay $630,000.
“Taxpayer-funded research must be conducted with the highest integrity,” U.S. Lawyer Craig H. Missakian mentioned in a press release.
“When recipients of federal funds fail to comply with the terms of the grant, they divert valuable research dollars from deserving small businesses,” he mentioned. “My office will continue to use the False Claims Act to protect federal grant programs from fraud and abuse.”
Initially Printed: August 18, 2025 at 5:22 PM PDT
