Practice Areas
Government Contracts
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February 22, 2012
11th Circ. Revives $69M Fraud Suit Against Medco
The Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday revived a whistleblowers' False Claims Act suit alleging Medco Health Solutions Inc. subsidiaries hid $69 million in Medicare and Medicaid overpayments, finding the relators' complaint should have survived a motion to dismiss.
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February 22, 2012
Agencies Eye 2% Foreign Tax To Fund 9/11 Health Care
Some federal agencies are proposing to impose a 2 percent tax on certain foreign procurements to fulfill the requirements of a law funding health care for 9/11 first responders, according to information published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.
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February 22, 2012
Ex-Army Major's Wife Sentenced For Role In Bribe Plot
An Illinois federal judge sentenced the wife of a former U.S. Army National Guard major to probation and home detention Wednesday for concealing cash that her husband, previously sentenced to five years in prison, received through a government contracts bribery scheme in Afghanistan.
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February 22, 2012
Kuwaiti Co. Claims Feds Cooked Evidence In Contract Row
The Public Warehousing Co. asked a Georgia federal court Tuesday to dismiss criminal charges that it overbilled the U.S. on a multibillion-dollar defense contract, accusing prosecutors of misconduct including pressuring officials to change their positive evaluations of the Kuwaiti contractor.
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February 22, 2012
Insurer Aims To Duck Coverage Of Omeros FCA Suit
Carolina Casualty Insurance Co. sued biopharmaceutical company Omeros Corp. on Tuesday, seeking to avoid covering claims from an underlying False Claims Act action brought by the company's former chief financial officer concerning allegedly fraudulent National Institute of Health grants.
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February 21, 2012
DOD Shelled Out $1B For Possibly Unnecessary IT, Report Says
The U.S. Department of Defense may have spent $1.2 billion over the past five years on overlapping information technology purchases, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported Friday.
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February 21, 2012
Dental Center Co. Seeks Sale To Root Out Fraud Claims
Dental center manager Church Street Health Management LLC told a Tennessee federal judge Tuesday that it would seek to sell its assets to a stalking horse bidder, one day after fallout from Medicaid fraud claims forced the company into bankruptcy.
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February 21, 2012
PG&E Holds On To $89M Award In Nuclear Waste Removal Suit
The Federal Circuit on Tuesday rejected the government's challenge to $4.9 million of the $89 million in damages awarded to Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in a contract dispute stemming from the U.S. government's failure to remove spent nuclear fuel.
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February 21, 2012
Coast Guard's Witness Destroyed Evidence: Contractor
A South Carolina contractor embroiled in a contract dispute with the U.S. Coast Guard over the construction of a repair shop on Monday asked a federal judge to sanction the government after thousands of pages of evidence were allegedly destroyed.
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February 21, 2012
Rotech Sues VA Over Home Oxygen Contract
Home medical equipment supplier Rotech Healthcare Inc. on Friday protested the terms of a U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs home oxygen contract solicitation, alleging its parameters create an unfair contract award system.
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February 21, 2012
Boeing Escapes Supreme Court Review Of Chopper Crash Case
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to review the Ninth Circuit's ruling in favor of The Boeing Co. and other government contractors in a lawsuit bought by the families of soldiers killed in a 2007 helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
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February 17, 2012
Huron, Empire Can't Duck $50M St. Vincent FCA Suit
A New York federal judge on Friday refused to dismiss a suit alleging Huron Consulting Group Inc. and Empire HealthChoice Assurance Inc. overbilled Medicare and Medicaid by $50 million while running St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers into the ground.
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February 17, 2012
Lockheed Challenges Northrop's $638M CANES Win
Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems Inc. on Monday challenged the U.S. Navy’s award to Northrop Grumman Corp. of a computer system contract that could be worth up to $638 million.
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February 17, 2012
GAO Scraps Utility's Protest Of $278M Privatization Contract
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has denied Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.'s protest of a $277.7 million contract to privatize electricity delivery in Aberdeen, Md., saying in a decision published Friday that the government acted reasonably when rejecting BGE's higher-priced bid.
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February 17, 2012
GAO Kills General Dynamics' Protest Of $244M IBM Task Order
The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a decision Friday denying General Dynamics Information Technology Inc.'s protest of the National Archives and Records Administration's award of a $244 million task order to IBM Corp. for electronic archiving services, finding the agency's evaluation was reasonable.
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February 17, 2012
Contractor Can Be Sued In La. Under Iraqi Law: 5th Circ.
The Fifth Circuit reversed the dismissal of a wrongful death suit against contractor Arkel International LLC., ruling Thursday that the company could be sued under Iraqi law for the death of a National Guard sergeant who was electrocuted at a U.S. military base in Iraq.
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February 16, 2012
Belgian Co. Avoids Up To $100M In FCA Bid-Rigging Fines
A Virginia federal judge on Tuesday refused to impose proposed civil penalties of up to $100 million on a Belgian transport company that a jury said rigged bids for U.S. Department of Defense contracts, ruling the penalties would be unconstitutionally excessive.
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February 16, 2012
Delays, Overruns Plague FAA Acquisitions Procedures: GAO
The Federal Aviation Administration needs to improve its acquisition procedures so as to prevent delays and cost overruns as it maintains its current radar-based air traffic control system and develops a new satellite-based system, according to a Thursday report.
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February 16, 2012
Alleged Gangster Sentenced In $100M Medicare Fraud Case
An alleged gangster charged in the largest Medicare fraud case ever prosecuted has been sentenced in New York federal court to 37 months in prison following a guilty plea to a count of racketeering conspiracy, according to court documents filed Thursday.
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February 16, 2012
Jury Convicts 4 In $29M Medicaid Billing Scheme
An Alabama federal jury on Monday convicted the operator of a hemophilia care company and three other individuals for their alleged roles in a $29 million kickback scheme in which Medicaid was billed for unnecessary hemophilia medication.
Expert Analysis
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Case Study: Bunk V. Birkart
The recent decision in the Eastern District of Virginia in Bunk v. Birkart Globistics demonstrates the pitfalls for relators and for the government itself in actively pursuing False Claims Act claims in the absence of provable damages, say attorneys with Vinson & Elkins LLP.
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'Buy American' And Solar Devices — DOD Clarification
The U.S. Department of Defense's interim rule implementing the "Buy American" requirement for photovoltaic devices being purchased by the DOD should provide greater clarity for contractors regarding the types of products that will satisfy the new requirement, as well as how the requirement will be implemented, say attorneys with Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP.
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Increasing Access To Innovative Biomedical Technology
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's biomedical innovation report has set forth how the FDA is working to facilitate overall medical product innovation. However, to accelerate biomedical innovation fully, Congress should consider steps to further elevate the mission of the FDA for the challenges of today, says William Kitchens of Arnall Golden & Gregory LLP.
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Law School, Meet Litigation PR ...
The single most important thing law schools can do to manage their reputations in the face of litigation is apply the lessons learned from Wall Street during the recent financial crisis and strive for transparency in all communications. One need only look to Goldman Sachs’ woes or the struggles of Jon Corzine’s MF Global as examples of the catastrophic results of a campaign based on anything but complete honesty, says Spencer Baretz of Hellerman Baretz Communications.
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Facilitating The Federal Transition To The Cloud
The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program's recently released concept of operations suggests that its new regime for cloud service authorization may slow down agencies’ anticipated timelines for transitioning to the cloud as the Joint Authorization Board and FedRAMP Project Management Office work to become fully operational, say attorneys with McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP.
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Gov't In-Sourcing: Where Can Contractors Turn?
When the government decides to take work in-house, the contractor on the losing end of that decision is left with little solace that any forum will entertain its claim. While lawyers often have to walk a tightrope without a net, the law in this area asks attorneys to balance on the rope without the rope, say Kenneth Weckstein and Michael Maloney of Brown Rudnick LLP.
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Case Study: Chapman Law Firm V. US
The application of the contra proferentem doctrine in a False Claims Act case should not be surprising, but it is significant in Chapman Law Firm LPA v. U.S. because the case makes clear that, in certain FCA cases, fraud claims cannot rest on facially ambiguous contract provisions, say Douglas Baruch and John Boese of Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP.
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Expanding Agency Debarment And Suspension Authority
While questions remain about the implementation details of the Consolidated Appropriations Act and the National Defense Authorization Act provisions, there is no question that they will fundamentally alter the government’s determination of who is eligible to receive contracts, says Mary Beth Bosco of Patton Boggs LLP.
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Revised Removal Statutes — Possibilities, Pitfalls: Part 2
The Federal Courts Jurisdiction and Venue Clarification Act of 2011 has brought about substantial clarification in the federal removal, jurisdiction and venue statutes. But the act still leaves substantial ambiguity in place when it comes to the scope of these statutes, say Colin Wrabley and Douglas Allen of Reed Smith LLP.
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Case Study: Fisher V. Halliburton
The Fifth Circuit's recent opinion in Fisher v. Halliburton represents a good result for employers and employees alike, furthering the dual purposes of the Defense Base Act — prompt relief for employees, with limited and predictable liability for employers, says Ryan Berry of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice PLLC.