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Government Contracts
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May 21, 2013
InfoReliance Pulls Suit Over $960M Air Force IT Contract
Information technology firm InfoReliance Corp. on Monday withdrew a lawsuit alleging it was unfairly passed over for a piece of a $960 million U.S. Air Force contract based on small business subcontracting requirements, less than a month after filing the complaint.
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May 21, 2013
Pa. Appeals Court Pares Hospitals' Medicaid Rates Suit
A Pennsylvania appeals court on Monday pared down claims in a suit alleging the state Department of Public Welfare improperly authorized the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania to set hospital and provider Medicaid rates with managed care organizations that stripped hospitals of any negotiating power.
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May 20, 2013
Va. Decision Casts Doubt On Contractor Teaming Plans
A recent decision in Virginia's federal court could alter the way companies team up to win federal contracts, by invalidating preaward subcontracting agreements as unenforceable "agreements to agree" in the future.
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May 20, 2013
Fighting Agencies May Be Tougher After High Court Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court's Monday ruling in favor of the Federal Communications Commission, which held that courts should apply a deferential standard of review when federal agencies interpret the limits of their own authority, may make it tougher for regulated businesses to fight agency actions, attorneys say.
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May 20, 2013
NJ Assembly Passes Privatization Standards Bill
The New Jersey General Assembly on Monday passed legislation to establish specific standards and procedures for the privatization of the state’s public services, a rebuke to a recent trend toward privatization despite complaints from some lawmakers who said it doesn’t always save money or provide better service.
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May 20, 2013
7 Birdsall Execs Plead Not Guilty In Pay-To-Play Scheme
Seven executives from engineering firm Birdsall Services Group on Monday pled not guilty in a New Jersey state court after being indicted in a pay-to-play scheme in which they are accused of concealing illegal corporate campaign contributions by masking them as personal employee donations.
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May 20, 2013
Homeland Security Aims To Debar Body Scanner Maker
OSI Systems Inc., which manufactured body scanners for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said Monday that the government is seeking to debar it from getting new contracts as a result of privacy concerns raised by its equipment.
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May 20, 2013
Cybersecurity Standards Need Flexibility, NIST Told
The National Institute of Standards and Technology on Thursday released an analysis of hundreds of initial comments on proposed cybersecurity measures to protect critical infrastructure, with respondents stressing that the framework should allow for flexibility and emphasize risk management over compliance standards.
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May 20, 2013
NYU Researchers Charged In Chinese Bribes-For-Secrets Plot
Three New York University researchers have been charged with accepting bribes in exchange for secretly providing medical research to Chinese companies, sharing work that was funded by the National Institutes of Health with the university's competitors, authorities said Monday.
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May 20, 2013
Agencies Deserve Deference On Jurisdiction, Justices Say
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that courts should apply a deferential standard of review toward a federal agency's definition of its own jurisdiction, siding with the Federal Communications Commission in a fight with local government agencies over zoning rules for wireless facilities.
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May 20, 2013
NYC Sued Over Seniority Changes In School Bus Contracts
Two New York City school bus companies on Thursday hit the city with a lawsuit alleging its Department of Education illegally changed contract bid requirements, allowing newer companies to avoid a mandate that certain senior drivers be hired.
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May 20, 2013
Omnicare Gets FCA Off-Label Prescription Action Trimmed
A Georgia federal judge on Friday trimmed several claims from a False Claims Act suit accusing Omnicare Inc. of charging Medicare for thousands of anti-psychotic drug prescriptions for off-label uses, ruling they weren't backed by evidence or were improperly added to an amended complaint.
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May 17, 2013
Criminal Probes Await Top Health Cos.: Ex-DOJ Fraud Chief
The U.S. Department of Justice’s heavy focus on health care fraud in recent years is set to move into a new phase that will increasingly target major corporations and their executives with criminal investigations, said Sam S. Sheldon, a Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP partner who until recently headed up the DOJ's health care fraud unit.
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May 17, 2013
Hospitals' Medicaid Rate Suit Nixed By Texas High Court
The Texas Supreme Court on Friday rejected an argument by 14 hospitals that the state is required to recalculate Medicaid reimbursement rates for the 2002 through 2009 fiscal years, ruling that a 2008 decision the high court issued in the dispute afforded no such relief.
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May 17, 2013
GSA, DOD Solicit Advice On Revamping Cybersecurity
The U.S. General Services Administration and Department of Defense are seeking advice regarding cybersecurity standards involved in government contracts, requesting that vendors weigh in on current measures and the potential pitfalls of implementing new ones as part of a national push to revamp cybersecurity.
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May 17, 2013
CH2M Can't Get Additional Fees For $2.7B Cleanup, DOE Says
A review conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy over a $2.7 billion contract awarded to a CH2M Hill company for environmental cleanup of the Idaho National Laboratory nuclear research facility site has found that the contractor isn't entitled to additional fees based on the contract's nontarget work.
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May 17, 2013
Medicaid Fraud Units To Get Federal Funds For Data Mining
The Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general on Friday released a final rule that will allow Medicaid fraud control units to get federal funding to conduct data-mining activities, such as analyzing claims data to look for patterns of abuse, reversing a long-standing prohibition on such funds.
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May 17, 2013
Contractors Ask 11th Circ. To Affirm Overturned Suspensions
Two U.S.-based contractors with ties to an indicted Kuwaiti food contractor on Thursday asked the Eleventh Circuit to uphold a lower court’s decision to lift a contracting suspension imposed by the U.S. Department of Defense, arguing they had never been accused of wrongdoing.
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May 17, 2013
KBR Says $500M Iraq Closeout Deal Is Separate Contract
KBR Inc. shot back Thursday at the federal government's attempt to dismiss its protest over a $500 million fixed-price plan to close out a massive Iraq War contract, saying the government had wrongly asserted that the plan was an extension of a contract that expired in 2011.
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May 17, 2013
Apparel Co. Loses $325M Military Uniform Bid Protest
Alabama-based American Apparel Inc. lost a bid protest over a $325 million military uniform contract Thursday, failing to convince the U.S. Government Accountability Office that the government should have considered the winner’s poor performance on a contract that ended after the bidding period had closed.
Expert Analysis
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Reflections On Recent Cybersecurity Developments
Several key challenges will be important to monitor as the Obama administration implements its recent executive order on cybersecurity infrastructure, including the scope of the cybersecurity threat, how law, regulation and policy may address that threat, and certain competing policy imperatives, say attorneys with Covington & Burling LLP.
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SAFETY Act: A Cybersecurity Win-Win For Gov't, Industry
By taking advantage of the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act, private industry can help protect the country from cyberattack while lowering insurance costs and mitigating liability risks, say Dismas Locaria and Andrew Bigart of Venable LLP.
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How To Navigate Federal Affirmative Action Compliance
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs recently has increased the frequency and intensity of its affirmative action audits. It is essential that federal contractors and subcontractors be familiar with the 16 mandatory — and not-so-easy — steps for federal affirmative action compliance, and document all efforts to comply with them, says Christina Lewis of Hinckley Allen & Snyder LLP.
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No Mercy From IRS On Section 409A Compliance
Big Brother is paying attention to how you value your company’s stock for purposes of granting stock options, as evidenced by Sutardja v. United States, in which the U.S. Court of Federal Claims recently confirmed that Section 409A applies to discounted stock options. This case highlights the need to ensure that a determination of fair market value is defensible and complies with Section 409A, says Justin Stemple of Warner Norcross & Judd LLP.
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Murky Work: Disputing Federal Supply Schedule Contracts
One would think that the roles of the ordering contracting officer and the schedule CO in the federal supply schedule contracts disputes process would be straightforward, but it has been an area of disagreement and confusions. This is illustrated by the Federal Circuit's recent decision in Sharp Electronics Corp. v. McHugh, say Ken Weckstein and Pam Reynolds of Brown Rudnick LLP.
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Financial Institutions Face New Debarment Risks
Financial institutions should view suspension and debarment as credible threats. Lawmakers, concerned that financial institutions may have been inadequately punished, may press agencies to exact punishment through their independent power to debar or suspend, or they may further push for automatic debarments, say attorneys with Covington & Burling LLP.
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Hospitals Must Re-Evaluate Subcontractor Status
A Washington, D.C., federal court's recent decision in UPMC Braddock v. Harris confirms the concerns of many health care providers — that their contractual relationships may subject them to affirmative action obligations and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs jurisdiction, even if they have no direct relationship with the federal government, say attorneys with Duane Morris LLP.
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What To Know About CMS' Recently Proposed Rule
Concerns about the Medicare appeals process and administrative burdens placed on both adjudicators and providers have been building over the last year, and recently, important changes, most notably, the proposed A/B rule, were announced that impact revenue strategies for hospitals in particular, say attorneys with Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice LLP.
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Big Changes To Small Business '50 Percent Rule'
The National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 made important changes to the limitation on subcontracting, known as the “50 percent rule.” The changes may make compliance easier to calculate but harder to achieve, says Daniel Koch of Miles & Stockbridge PC.
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Spending Bill's China Cybersecurity Provision Is Unclear
The vague language of the China cyber-espionage provision in the continuing resolution to fund federal agencies through the rest of the fiscal year might be problematic because it could potentially apply to any part of a company’s supply chain. The provision also raises potentially significant international trade issues, say attorneys with Hogan Lovells LLP.