The head of security giant G4S, which overcharged on contracts for tagging criminals, has told MPs the company failed to "tell the difference between right and wrong".
Appearing before MPs at Westminster, G4S chief executive Ashley Almanza apologised to the taxpayer for the firm's handling of its electronic monitoring contracts.
And Serco chairman Alistair Lyons told the Commons Public Accounts Committee it was "ethically wrong" that his company also overcharged the Ministry of Justice.
He admitted that since the disclosures about the tagging contracts surfaced in July, Serco has lost a third of its value on the FTSE 100 Index - equal to £1.3bn.
Mr Almanza was less specific, but said: "It's hard to attribute but there's undoubtedly been a loss of value in the company."
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has opened a criminal investigation after it emerged G4S and Serco overcharged the Government for tagging offenders, some of whom were found to be dead, back in prison or overseas.
Mr Almanza said: "It was a judgment that was flawed. It was just a flawed judgment. I don't think we did correctly tell the difference between right and wrong. We got it wrong."
Alistair Lyons told MPs Serco had lost a third of its value He added: "I apologise to the Secretary of State and I should apologise to this committee and the taxpayer on behalf of our company. We didn't have the systems in place that we needed.
"Too much was left to a small number of individuals and we didn't have appropriate checks and balances in place and that is changing now as we speak."
Mr Lyons said: "Managers within our UK division may have genuinely interpreted the contract that way but that's not the point, as far as we're concerned. It was never right that we should bill where we were not doing work in respect of that billing.
"That was wrong. It was ethically wrong and for us it's one of the signs that say we need to have an attitudinal change within our business."
Committee chair Margaret Hodge said: "If you had never been caught on some of these people who are out of jail, dead or whatever, you would have carried on charging to the year 3000."
Mr Lyons replied: "It was totally wrong. As far as we're concerned, it may have been what a contractual interpretation, what the lawyers might argue, it still wasn't right."
The Government has rejected a £24 million offer from G4S to settle the overcharging scandal with officials vowing to "pursue all possible avenues" to recoup more taxpayers' cash.
Mr Lyons and Mr Almanza said no evidence of overcharging on other contracts held by Serco and G4S had been found.
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