Dan Caputo Co., et al., (“Caputo”) and C.W. Roen Construction Co., et al., (“Roen”) were each sued in separate cases by, respectively, Local Union No. 342 and Local Union No. 38 of the Plumbers and Steamfitters (“the Union”) for failure to pay the prevailing wage rate as required by the Davis-Bacon Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729 (a)(2) and the Copeland Act, 40 U.S.C. §§ 276a and 276c. The suits were brought in the form of claims against Roen and Caputo under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729 . In each case, the district court gave judgment for the contractor. The Union has appealed, and we have consolidated the appeals. Holding that the Union failed to prove a false claim by either company, we affirm the judgments of the district courts.

FACTS

On May 24, 1993, Caputo was awarded a contract by the Union Sanitary District to perform the expansion of a waste-water treatment plant in Alameda County. The contract was federally financed and governed by Davis-Bacon. Caputo certified compliance with Davis-Bacon, paying workers on piping as Laborers; its subcontractor, D.W. Nicholson Corp., paid such workers as Millwrights.

*928 A jurisdictional dispute existed between the union embracing Laborers and the union embracing Plumbers (“the U.A.”). That dispute appeared to be settled in May 1992 by an agreement between the two unions that Plumbers’ wages should be paid for all piping work on water treatment plants, except that Laborers’ wages should be paid on the installation of non-pressurized surface and storm drain piping. On January 18, 1994, Frank A. Conte, the district director of the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor (“the Department”), wrote a letter to John J. Davis, counsel for the Union, as follows:

Later in January 1994, Davis sent a copy of the Conte letter to Caputo. On June 17, 1994, the Laborers notified the U.A. that they were terminating the agreement on which Conte relied.

On July 1, 1994, Davis brought the Conte-Davis letter to the attention of the Union Sanitary District, seeking help in its enforcement against Caputo. The Union Sanitary District asked Caputo for an explanation. Caputo replied that the agreement between the Plumbers and Laborers had been abrogated. The Union Sanitary District then accepted Caputo’s classification.

On September 1, 1994, Roen entered into a construction contract with the City of Santa Rosa, California, to make improvements to the Laguna Wastewater Treatment Plant. The Laguna Plant was a federally funded project on which Roen certified that it classified workers on piping as Laborers and paid them the prevailing wage for Laborers.

On February 25, 1995, Davis wrote Conte requesting enforcement against Ca-puto in accordance with the Conte-Davis letter of January 18, 1994. A year later, on February 21, 1996, Conte wrote Davis, modifying his 1994 letter, as follows:

Further discussions with the Union resulted in Conte superseding the letter of February 21, 1996, which itself had superseded the letter of January 18, 1994. Conte now wrote Davis on March 11, 1996:

The regional office of the Department did not proceed with the enforcement action but investigated the prevailing practice, ultimately referring questions to headquarters in Washington.

On November 14, 1996, Maria Escha-veste, the administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department, wrote to another local of the Plumbers as follows:

The Plumbers continued to seek enforcement. On March 17, 1997, John R. Fraser, Acting Administrator of the Employment Standards Wage and Hour Division wrote Davis:

The Union asked for reconsideration. On March 2, 1999, Corlis L. Sellers of the Department’s National Office Program Administration formally replied to this request, denying it with “a final ruling under 19 CFR 5.13.” The ruling specified as to the Alvarado Project awarded to Caputo:

The Union was informed that it could petition for review; it did not do so.

PROCEEDINGS

On August 27, 1995, the Union brought this suit against Caputo in the district court. That court dismissed the suit in order to allow the Department to make findings “on the particular facts of the case.” The Union appealed. We held that “deferral to the Department with respect to classification determinations is proper under the doctrine of primary jurisdiction.” But we held that the suit should not have been dismissed but stayed. United States ex rel., Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union No. 34-2 v. Dan Caputo Co. et al., 152 F.3d 1060 , 1061 (9th Cir.1998).

On remand, the district court granted summary judgment to Caputo, ruling that the Department’s letter of March 2, 1999, conclusively determined that Caputo had not misclassified its employees.

On August 19, 1996, the Union filed its suit against Roen. The district court granted summary judgment to Roen, ruling that the prevailing wage was uncertain, so the Union could not show Roen had knowingly submitted false claims. On appeal, we held, (1) that the False Claims Act was a proper vehicle to use to enforce Davis-Bacon; (2) that “an area practice survey” was not essential to the determination of a prevailing wage, but that such wage could “be derived from collective bargaining agreements.” United States ex rel. Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union No. 38 v. C.W. Roen Construction Co. et al., 183 F.3d 1088 (9th Cir.1999), cert, denied, 530 U.S. 1203 , 120 S.Ct. 2195 , 147 L.Ed.2d 232 (2000). We accordingly, reversed and remanded, noting:

On remand, the district court ruled that the Department had not followed the procedures for settling wage disputes set out in 29 C.F.R. § 5.11 , which states:

As the Conte-Davis correspondence did not follow the basic rules of § 5.11 — Conte did not notify the contractor of his findings and no provisions were made for a hearing- — the determinations made therein were not binding. The Union offered no other evidence of the prevailing wage.

Alternatively, the district court ruled on the Union’s contention that § 5.13 of the regulations applied. This section states:

The court held that the Union had never invoked § 5.13. The court granted summary judgement in favor of Roen.

The Union appeals both judgments.

ANALYSIS

Congress has given the Department the authority to determine the prevailing wage for Davis-Bacon purposes. 40 U.S.C. §§ 276a(a), 276a-7; Universities Research Ass’n v. Coutu, 450 U.S. 754, 756-57 , 101 S.Ct. 1451 , 67 L.Ed.2d 662 (1981). The procedure for obtaining this determination is set out in 29 C.F.R. § 5.11 . This section governs the “resolution of disputes of fact or law concerning payment of prevailing wage rates, overtime pay or proper classification.” A dictum of the Supreme Court adds that “prior to the award of a contract” a contractor or labor organization may also obtain a ruling on a disputed classification of workers from the Secretary of Labor under § 5.13. Coutu, 450 U.S. at 760-61 , 101 S.Ct. 1451 .

The Union does not contend that it sought a determination under § 5.11. It did not seek a determination under § 5.13 prior to the award of the contract to Caputo. According to the Coutu dictum, § 5.13 may be used to bring a dispute over classification to the administrator of the Wage and Hour Division. We accept the Union’s contention that the administrator may delegate his dispute-settling authority to a subordinate. We assume, without deciding, that authority was thus delegated to Conte and that Davis’s informal ex parte approach to him was an invocation of § 5.13. Conte’s letters, however, were not final agency action as they were not treated as such by the agency but repudiated by the Department. Consequently, neither under § 5.11 nor under § 5.13 was a prevailing wage determined by the Department.

*933 The Department’s Wage Appeals Board decided in 1977 that prevailing wage rates and job classifications may be derived from collective bargaining agreements. Matter of Fry Brothers Corp., 123 WAB No. 76-7, 1997 CCH Wages-Hours Administrative Rulings ¶ 31, 113 at 42, 757 (June 14, 1977). Our holding in Roen I confirmed this principle. Here, however, there is no evidence of a collective bargaining agreement; the evidence offered is a jurisdictional agreement between two labor unions.

For a false claim suit to succeed, the plaintiff must show that the claim was false, that is, contrary to an existing state of things. 31 U.S.C. § 3729 (a)(1); U.S. ex rel. Foundation Aiding the Elderly v. Horizon West, 265 F.3d 1011, 1015 (9th Cir. 2001). The Union in this case has not shown that the defendants failed to pay the prevailing wage. The May 1992 agreement of the Laborers and the Plumbers did not establish a prevailing wage, as the agreement was not followed. No prevailing wage or classification of work was established by any actual survey. No prevailing wage or classification was established by any collective bargaining agreement, the second way Roen I held a prevailing wage might be established. No prevailing wage was established by the three Conte-Davis letters, the second superseding the first, and third superseding the second, with Conte’s conclusions finally being repudiated by his superior. The Fraser-Davis correspondence even notes that the failure to follow the 1992 agreement of the Laborers and Plumbers was “the underlying basis for the Union’s complaint.”

For the foregoing reason, the judgment of each district court is AFFIRMED.