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Government Contracts
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May 8, 2013
NJ Lawmaker Revives Pay Equality Bills Felled By Veto
A New Jersey assemblywoman on Monday reintroduced a pair of bills aimed at eliminating gender-based pay disparities in the state, her second attempt to get the legislation passed after Gov. Chris Christie shot the bills down last year.
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May 8, 2013
Military Base Workers Cop To Trading Business For Bribes
Two former employees at a Georgia military base admitted Wednesday to taking bribes to divert business to a local trucking company in a scheme that resulted in millions of dollars in overcharges to the government.
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May 8, 2013
Gov't Cellphone Contracts Show Sloppiness, Watchdog Says
Despite the Office of Management and Budget's efforts to better coordinate federal contracting through strategic sourcing, OMB data shows sloppiness persists, as in the case of one agency that paid 13 different prices for cellphone services, according to the nonprofit watchdog Project on Government Oversight.
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May 8, 2013
Contractors Back Reforms For US Foreign Aid Contracts
Government contractors on Wednesday threw their support behind a House bill that would reform U.S. foreign aid and foreign development contracts, saying that allowing for-profit contractors to compete on equal footing with nonprofits will improve the effectiveness of U.S.-funded projects.
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May 8, 2013
Late Deliveries Doom $2.5M Printing Contract Bids, GAO Says
The U.S. Government Accountability Office on Monday denied Colonial Press International, Inc.’s protest over the rejection of its low bids for $2.5 million in Medicare and nutrition handbook printing contracts, citing the company’s recent history of late deliveries.
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May 8, 2013
AT&T To Pay $18M In Overbilling Row Over Deaf Call Services
AT&T Corp. will pay $18.25 million to settle allegations it improperly billed the government for subsidized telephone services for the speech and hearing impaired, the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday.
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May 7, 2013
SBA Opens Door To Larger Contract Set-Asides For Women
The U.S. Small Business Administration on Tuesday issued an interim final rule that removes the statutory cap on the size of contracts that agencies can set aside for women-owned small businesses, opening the door to set-asides of any dollar value.
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May 7, 2013
Short-Term Patches Like FAA Fix Let Sequester Dig In Heels
Recent legislation has blunted sequestration's impact on air travel delays caused by Federal Aviation Administration furloughs, but some observers worry that a piecemeal solution that addresses the most pressing and public effects of sequestration will harm longer-term efforts to undo the arbitrary cuts in other areas of government spending.
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May 7, 2013
GOP Pans Labor Nominee Ahead Of Senate Committee Vote
Republican lawmakers lambasted labor secretary nominee Thomas Perez on Tuesday for allegedly stopping the U.S. Department of Justice from intervening in a False Claims Act suit, at a contentious House joint subcommittee hearing that comes just a day before a Senate committee vote on Perez's nomination.
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May 7, 2013
NY Election Reform Effort Could Yield More Campaign Cops
Campaign reform dominated New York politics Tuesday as Republicans tore into the potential costs of using public money to finance statewide candidates, but with corruption scandals rocking Albany, many hinted they could at least back more spending to hunt for “pay-to-play” contracts and other election-season violations.
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May 7, 2013
Fed. Circ. Won't Let Contractor Pursue Suit On His Co.'s Behalf
The Federal Circuit on Tuesday denied an appeal bid by a government contracting executive who has repeatedly wrangled with the courts over his ability to individually pursue a breach-of-contract suit on behalf of his dissolved construction company.
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May 7, 2013
Christie Vetoes Bill To Monitor NJ Lottery Contractor
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Monday vetoed a measure that would have required legislative oversight before the state could privatize aspects of its lottery, saying lawmakers have misunderstood his administration’s plan to contract the lottery’s sales and marketing to a private company.
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May 7, 2013
DLA Piper Fees Questioned In Pa. Lottery Privatization
A Pennsylvania state representative asked the state’s revenue secretary on Tuesday to release documents detailing fees paid to DLA Piper in conjunction with efforts to privatize the state’s lottery, seeking an explanation for costs that exceeded earlier estimates.
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May 7, 2013
Investment Co. Rips Suit Over Chicago's $563M Garage Lease
An investment entity owned by two Morgan Stanley units asked an Illinois court Friday to dismiss a taxpayer group's lawsuit challenging Chicago's $563 million parking garage lease deal with the company, saying that the group lacks standing and that the deal doesn't improperly restrict the city's powers.
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May 7, 2013
Whistleblowers Say DaVita Abusing Doc Privilege In FCA Case
The relators in a False Claims Act suit accusing DaVita Inc. of creating waste to overbill Medicare told a Georgia federal court Monday that the dialysis service provider was abusing attorney-client privilege by labeling an excessive amount of communications as confidential.
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May 6, 2013
Northrop Targets Fraud Claims In $33M Contract Case
Northrop Grumman Corp. on Thursday asked a Court of Federal Claims judge to dismiss the U.S. government's fraud counterclaims in a dispute over an improperly billed employee stock incentive, citing a recent case that nixed similar counterclaims because the contractor made no attempt to deceive the government.
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May 6, 2013
GAO Boots Protest Of $40M Coast Guard Support Contract
The U.S. Government Accountability Office on Monday denied a small business protest over a $40 million Coast Guard contract awarded to Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., rejecting arguments that the protester should have been rated higher because it was the incumbent contractor for the work.
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May 6, 2013
Philly Goes After 11 Contractors Over Sham Minority Efforts
Eleven prime contractors for the Philadelphia Housing Development Corp. colluded with a minority-owned contractor to use its name and certification to sidestep the city’s anti-discrimination requirements, the Office of the Inspector General announced Monday.
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May 6, 2013
11th Circ. Blocks Fla. Law Targeting Cos. With Cuba Ties
The 11th Circuit ruled Monday that a Florida law barring contractors with business ties to Cuba from bidding on public contracts runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause in overreaching and trying to trump the federal government's policies toward Cuba.
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May 6, 2013
Sanctions Sought Over Medco's 'Inept' Expert In FCA Case
Employee whistleblowers suing Medco Health Solutions Inc. over $69 million in alleged Medicare and Medicaid overpayments sought harsh sanctions against the company Friday, accusing Medco counsel of drumming up a company expert with “canned” and “inept” responses designed to evade important testimony at a critical stage in the litigation.
Expert Analysis
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No Defense Reimbursement For Insurers In Wash.
In Washington state, insurance carriers are between a rock and a hard place with an anvil overhead. The rock: coverage by waiver or estoppel if rights are not reserved. The hard place: the inability to obtain reimbursement for providing a prophylactic defense. The anvil: potential bad faith liability. In light of National Surety Corp. v. Immunex Corp., that seems to be where the Washington State Supreme Court wants them, says Louis Castoria of Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP.
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How Lawyers Benefit From Early Neutral Evaluation
Early neutral evaluation usually asks a retired judge to consider one party’s case, as if preparing to rule on summary judgment or presiding over a bench trial. Effective evaluation can supply a reality check on a case — it gives the lawyer the gift of seeing the case as others see it, says James Rosenbaum, a panelist with JAMS and former U.S. district judge for the District of Minnesota.
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AT&T Case Confirms GAO's Broad View Of Waiver Authority
The U.S. Government Accountability Office's decision in AT&T Government Solutions Inc. opens the door for government agencies to use their waiver authority under Federal Acquisition Regulation Subpart 9.5 during a protest to render academic a protester’s claim of potential organizational conflicts of interest, say attorneys with Morrison & Foerster LLP.
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Sequestration Raises Labor Law Risks For Contractors
Notwithstanding the additional flexibility provided by the spending bill that President Obama signed on March 26, sequestration will continue to cause significant uncertainty for government contractors due to government customers cutting programs, tasks and personnel. In selecting the employees who will be impacted by these cuts, contractors should apply reduction-in-force principles to reduce the likelihood of discrimination claims, say attorneys with Proskauer Rose LLP.
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Rule 12(e): What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing
The recent evolution of case law governing the standard for Rule 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss reveals that Rule 12(e) serves no practical purpose in modern pleading practice, says Nathan Kipp of Seyfarth Shaw LLP.
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Litigation Support At A Crossroads
Despite recession-driven cost pressures that have resulted in the downsizing of nonlawyer personnel at law firms, many litigation support departments are growing. In a recent survey, half of respondents indicated that their function has grown in size in the past three years, and more than half of respondents indicated that current staffing levels are inadequate for the projected needs of the coming year, say experts at Epiq Systems and Georgetown University Law Center.
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FCA Allows Treble Damages — 'But Treble What?'
The ability to seek treble damages is a key feature of the False Claims Act, yet few courts have asked a simple question: “Treble what?” In United States v. Anchor Mortgage Corporation, the Seventh Circuit resoundingly rejected the Justice Department’s long-standing approach to calculating damages in FCA cases. The implications for financial institutions and others facing FCA liability are significant, say attorneys with BuckleySandler LLP.
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Lance Armstrong’s FCA Woes: 3 Lessons For Contractors
The False Claims Act suit against Lance Armstrong is hardly a typical FCA case, given Armstrong’s celebrity status, the lurid allegations of the complaint and the very public way in which the scandal has unfolded. But it reflects a broader truth — government contractors are now operating in a time of unprecedented enforcement risk, say Steve Shaw and Mike Wagner of Covington & Burling LLP.
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Sequestration And The Sovereign Acts Doctrine
With all the talk about sequestration, we've been thinking — aren’t the sequester and a government shutdown “sovereign acts” for which the government bears no liability? A sequester-driven shutdown may be protected under the sovereign acts doctrine, but that won't protect the government from promises made in its contracts, say attorneys with Brown Rudnick LLP.
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7 Reasons To Do Pro Bono Work
Research shows that helping others and cultivating social relationships makes us happier and that generous people live longer, healthier lives. These are just a few of the countless reasons to create time in our busy schedules to do pro bono and charitable work this year, says Anne Brafford of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP.