The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has removed a Cincinnati builder from a blacklist of companies barred from obtaining federal contracts.

The VA last month removed from the blacklist BAMKO LLC, owners Evans Nwankwo and James C. Battle III and their other companies, Megen Construction Co. and Battleline Enterprises. They had been placed on the Excluded Parties List because of suspicions that they misrepresented BAMKO’s ownership so it could get special preference for obtaining lucrative government contracts under a program for small business owned by military veterans with service-related disabilities.

“We are happy to be vindicated in what we had told the government, that we were legitimate, straight-forward and transparent,” Battle said Tuesday. “There was no misrepresentation. If (there) was, we’d still be on that list.”

The Dayton Daily News noted BAMKO’s blacklisting as part of a special report on fraud in the veterans program published in April. At the time, a public relations agent for Nwankwo said he was preparing a written response to the blacklisting. Nwankwo’s Megen Construction did not return a phone call seeking comment.

BAMKO was incorporated in 2007 by builder Nwankwo, whose Megen Construction has worked on such high-profile projects as the Great American Ballpark, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and Fountain Square, according to the Ohio Secretary of State’s office. BAMKO was a partnership between Nwankwo and disabled Vietnam veteran Battle, a Cincinnati funeral director.

BAMKO has obtained about $18 million in government contracts, including a $4.1 million job for the Army Corps of Engineers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

The Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business program requires that the disabled veteran be the majority owner and control the business receiving the contracts. Fraud can occur when a disabled vet serves as a figurehead to allow partners to obtain government contracts.