CONCACAF settles lawsuit against US travel company Cartan

By Staff Writer | Feb 19, 2016 11:33 AM EST

CONCACAF recently accused a US travel company of overcharging for services as part of a kickback scheme. But then, CONCACAF has settled the lawsuit against the US travel company after they allegedly paid off former president Jeffrey Webb.

According to Channel News Asia, CONCACAF, the governing body for football in North and Central America and the Caribbean, has settled a lawsuit against a U.S. travel company. It has accused Cartan of overcharging for services as part of a kickback scheme, CONCACAF stated on Wednesday.

The organization's lawsuit, filed last December against California-based Cartan Tours Inc. in federal court in Los Angeles, was dismissed on Monday, according to the court docket. The court case suspected that Cartan secretly paid off CONCACAF's former president Jeffrey Webb, who pleaded guilty last year in a U.S. condemnation of corruption in football, and Enrique Sanz, who worked as CONCACAF's secretary general. In return, the lawsuit's claimed that Cartan secured a well-paid deal to provide travel and event planning services.

But then, Cartan had already denied the allegations and counteract those claims against CONCACAF. They filed for breach of contract, according to Howard Steinberg of the Greenberg Traurig law firm, who defended the company and other defendants named in the case.

"The settlement resulted in a mutual dismissal of claims with neither side paying the other side any money," Steinberg stated via the Dailymail UK. CONCACAF is also trying to clean up its organization after a few of its officials went through a lot of wide-reaching US probe into bribery and kick-back-related offenses that has rocked the sport's world governing body FIFA.

As of the total number of charges, 41 individuals and entities have already been charged in the United States in connection with the corruption investigation. An attorney for CONCACAF, Samir Gandhi, even mentioned that  the organization had been overpaying for travel services and was now free of the contract with the Travel Company, as reported by Reuters UK.

"The settlement will save CONCACAF millions of dollars and allow the Confederation to continue to move forward from the misconduct of past management to focus on football and governance reforms," CONCACAF claimed in a statement.

Meanwhile, the two parties have now agreed to settle their allegations out of court, in an agreement that CONCACAF ends the business relationship with Cartan. Both CONCACAF and Cartan declined to release details of the settlement, but  CONCACAF said that it would save millions of dollars as a result.

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