2 Aug - 2017
As indicated in our November 2015 web posting, Sapa Profiles, Inc. (SPI) had previously learned that some test records for aluminum extrusions manufactured by our Portland, Oregon plant had been altered by certain employees.  The misconduct was immediately stopped and the employees responsible for it were terminated.  In addition, SPI reported the misconduct to U.S. government officials and SPI’s customers.  The Department of Justice has been investigating this misconduct.  SPI has also been suspended as a federal government contractor, and NASA has initiated debarment proceedings.

Since SPI learned of this misconduct and reported it to the government and its customers, Sapa Extrusion North America has undertaken comprehensive actions over the past two and a half years to prevent this kind of misconduct in the future.  Sapa has invested significant time and resources to completely overhaul our quality and compliance organizations.  Sapa has also implemented over $11M USD in state-of-the-art tensile testing equipment across our North American operations that automates the tensile testing process in order to prevent manual alterations.

On July 26, 2017, Sapa learned that the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) had secured a guilty plea from a former employee of SPI in its ongoing criminal case related to the alteration of tensile test records.  We are continuing to fully cooperate with the government’s ongoing investigations, and we look forward to eventually putting this matter behind us.