Ogilvy & Mather Charged With Bilking White House

The U.S. has indicted executives from Ogilvy and Mather, a PR and advertising agency, for participating in an "extensive scheme to defraud the U.S. Government by falsely and fraudulently inflating the labor costs that Ogilvy incurred" for its work on a media campaign for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. According to O'Dwyer's PR Daily, O&M's anti-drug media campaign work was part of a five-year $684 million dollar project. The government claims it was overcharged by O&M from May 1999 to April 2000. "The White House, last month, decided not to renew O&M's anti-drug contract. It will put the business up for review in a bid to improve 'transparency.' O&M can re-bid," O'Dwyer's writes.