Government Contracts

  • July 22, 2026

    Gov't Contracting Policies To Watch In The 2nd Half Of 2026

    The Trump administration's final rule expanding foreign ownership requirements to more than 37,000 defense contractors and subcontractors and the Pentagon's review of the second phase of cybersecurity requirements headline five policy initiatives that government contractors should look for in the second half of this year.

  • July 21, 2026

    DC Circ. Revives Challenge To EPA's $3B Grant Cut

    The D.C. Circuit on Tuesday revived a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's termination of nearly $3 billion in environmental justice grants, saying a district court had neglected a key jurisdictional question when it dismissed the suit.

  • July 21, 2026

    DOJ Says Diocese Objections Can't Block Border Land Taking

    The Trump administration told a New Mexico federal judge that free speech and religious exercise objections are no basis to stop it from seizing 14 acres of land from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces for a border security project.

  • July 21, 2026

    Ship Owner Slams Damages Claims In Md. Bridge Collapse

    The operators of the ship that slammed into Baltimore's Key Bridge in 2024 blasted economic damages claims from the city and county of Baltimore, as well as private claimants, telling a federal judge that none had a proprietary interest in the bridge because it was owned by the state.

  • July 21, 2026

    Jordan Secures 10% Forced Labor Tariff Rate With US Deal

    The U.S. and Jordan signed a trade agreement Tuesday that would lower non-tariff trade barriers on U.S. exports in exchange for a U.S. commitment to impose a 10% tariff rate on imports from the kingdom when new duties to address goods produced with forced labor take effect.

  • July 21, 2026

    Lockheed Can't Use EEOC Charge To Narrow Bias Suit

    Lockheed Martin can't trim a lawsuit alleging it refused to give a worker the same opportunities offered to other employees because he is African and Muslim, a Texas federal judge ruled, concluding he wasn't required to use specific language in a pre-suit bias charge to preserve certain claims.

  • July 21, 2026

    Hospitals Say Saul Ewing Atty's Board Role Taints FCA Suit

    A Saul Ewing LLP attorney should be disqualified from leading a whistleblower suit over a nurse's alleged diversion of prescription narcotics, as the former Heritage Valley Health System in western Pennsylvania said he was previously a member of its board of directors.

  • July 21, 2026

    Blanche Denies Conflict With Family's Firearms Company

    Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has close ties through his wife's family to a gun manufacturer that does federal contracting, but he told senators in questions following his confirmation hearing there is no conflict of interest, despite his service on a Justice Department task force aimed at rolling back gun control initiatives around the country.

  • July 21, 2026

    Fla. Man Charged In NYPD Bribery Case Part Of 'Larger' Probe

    A Florida businessman who allegedly tried to bribe the former head of the New York City Police Department's School Safety Division for an $11 million panic-alert app contract is part of a "larger" ongoing probe, a Manhattan federal prosecutor said Tuesday.

  • July 21, 2026

    Top Gov't Contracting Policies Of 2026: Midyear Report

    The Trump administration made several policy moves affecting contractors this year, including throwing out long-standing regulations for determining small businesses' eligibility for a business development program and directing agencies to bar contractors from engaging in DEI activities. Here, Law360 examines significant policy changes from the first half of 2026 affecting government contractors.

  • July 20, 2026

    More Urban Hospitals Challenge HHS Medicare Wage Index

    Dozens of urban-area hospitals have filed another suit over the Health and Human Services wage index methodology for Medicare reimbursements, claiming the calculation was flawed between 2019 and 2023 and they are owed "prompt" payment to remediate the incorrect calculations.

  • July 20, 2026

    Green Groups Ask Court To Bar SpaceX Texas Land Transfer

    Environmental groups asked a D.C. federal court Monday to halt a deal that will see hundreds of acres of formerly protected habitat near the Texas Coast transferred to Space Exploration Technologies Corp., saying that an immediate injunction is needed to block the transfer while litigation plays out.

  • July 20, 2026

    Judge Questions Exxon Bid To Revive Claims In Records Suit

    A Massachusetts judge on Monday appeared unlikely to let Exxon Mobil revive equal protection claims in a public records lawsuit against state environmental regulators, saying counsel for the company was essentially asking him to second-guess a colleague who tossed the allegations in March.

  • July 20, 2026

    Deportees Sue Airline Contractors Over CECOT Prison Flights

    Three Venezuelan men who were flown to El Salvador's CECOT prison without a hearing last year have brought a class action against the airline contractors who transported them, saying the companies "rushed" to whisk away hundreds of detainees despite ongoing hearings in which a judge blocked the scheme.

  • July 20, 2026

    Masonry Co. Owner To Pay $7.2M Over Amtrak Bribery Plot

    The owner of an Illinois-based masonry contracting company who last year pled guilty to conspiring to bribe an Amtrak employee to get favorable contract terms for the renovation of Philadelphia's 30th Street Station has agreed to pay more than $7.2 million to resolve civil claims stemming from the scheme, prosecutors said.

  • July 20, 2026

    Engineers Fight General Dynamics Fee Bid For No-Poach Suit

    Engineers behind a suit that accused U.S. shipbuilders of using no-poach agreements to suppress industry wages urged a Virginia federal judge to reject General Dynamics Corp.'s push for attorney fees, arguing it has no merit and is aimed at penalizing them.

  • July 20, 2026

    Fluor Whistleblower Says Suit Clears FCA Disclosure Bar

    A former federal prosecutor pursuing labor-trafficking claims tied to a military logistics contract in Afghanistan says his lawsuit revealed previously unknown information that precludes his latest complaint from the bar on public disclosures in the False Claims Act.

  • July 20, 2026

    Top Gov't Contracting Cases To Watch In The 2nd Half Of 2026

    Federal courts in the latter half of 2026 are expected to decide if the Trump administration overstepped by designating Anthropic a supply chain risk to national security and whether the False Claims Act's qui tam provisions pass constitutional muster, potentially affecting the government's ability to tackle fraud.

  • July 17, 2026

    US Seeks Toss Of Arbutus Patent Suit Over Moderna Vaccine

    The federal government asked the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on Friday to dismiss much of a patent suit against it by Arbutus Biopharma tied to Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, saying the court couldn't hear the bulk of the case because Arbutus and Moderna reached a multibillion-dollar consent judgment that is subject to appeal.

  • July 17, 2026

    Ex-Hospital Exec Can't Cite Tainted Jury To Ditch Fraud Case

    A former Chicago hospital executive who is fighting extradition to face federal prosecutors' $239 million COVID-19 testing fraud charges cannot seek the same grand jury misconduct-based dismissal his former co-defendants received until he submits himself to the Northern District of Illinois' jurisdiction, a federal judge has ruled.

  • July 17, 2026

    Judge Says OMB Can't Change Grant Terms After Award

    A Massachusetts federal judge said Friday the Trump administration cannot rely on a shift in policy to retroactively change the terms of already awarded grants in order to justify canceling them.

  • July 17, 2026

    Drug Buyers' $62M Generic-Pricing Deal Gets Final OK

    A federal judge granted final approval to wholesalers on settlements worth a total of at least $62 million with Glenmark Pharmaceutical Inc., Pfizer Inc. and Pfizer subsidiary Greenstone LLC over claims the companies colluded with others to keep generic drug prices high, according to court orders.

  • July 17, 2026

    Mass. Drug Co. To Pay $4.7M To Resolve Kickback Claims

    A Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company has agreed to pay $4.7 million to settle allegations that it paid illegal kickbacks to physicians to induce them to buy a drug that treats eye inflammation, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.

  • July 17, 2026

    Calif. Judge Orders Feds To Improve ICE Facility Conditions

    A California federal judge has said the Trump administration must take steps to improve conditions at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center East and West, finding a class of immigrant detainees likely to prevail in litigation claiming people have been subjected to inhumane and intolerable treatment.

  • July 17, 2026

    DC Circ. Backs Maximum Prison Term For Trump Tax Leaker

    The D.C. Circuit has upheld the maximum prison sentence handed down in the case of an IRS contractor who pled guilty to leaking President Donald Trump's tax returns, along with thousands of others, ruling Friday that the punishment was "reasonable."

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    State Courts Must Be Gatekeepers Of Expert Testimony

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    Based on my experience in the state judiciary, emulating federal courts' role as gatekeepers of expert witness testimony would help state court judges maintain the appearance of impartiality and assist juries, thus enhancing the overall confidence people have in their justice system, says Lorie Gildea at Greenberg Traurig.

  • Weighing The Implications Of The Anthropic Export Directive

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    The Trump administration recently issued an export control directive against Anthropic to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, representing one of the first uses of the regime against a frontier large language model in widespread commercial distribution, says attorney Sohan Dasgupta.

  • Series

    Moshing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Entering a mosh pit is much like entering the practice of law — it is difficult, you have to know both the written and unwritten rules, and conduct yourself according to the expectations of each community, says Christopher Deubert at Constangy Brooks.

  • Data Reveals Pivot In Feds' Financial Fraud Priorities

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    Recent Justice Department data shows fraud prosecutions fell to their lowest rate in a decade in 2025, illustrating a move away from traditional financial cases and toward a targeted mix of healthcare, government program, consumer and sanctions matters, say Paul Hinton and Adrienna Huffman at The Brattle Group.

  • New Timeline For Benefits Cases May Increase FCA Litigation

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    Recent reforms designed to speed enforcers’ intervention decisions in False Claims Act suits involving state-administered benefits will likely encourage more qui tam relators to litigate cases without the government’s imprimatur, and increase defendants’ discovery burdens, defense costs and business disruptions, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Why Highly Specialized Experts May Risk Exclusion At Trial

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    Expert witnesses with highly specific areas of focus may be vulnerable to exclusion in court, making it important for attorneys to check how potential witnesses' qualifications can be bolstered by their publications and other professional activities, say Evan Weisberg and Christopher Cunio at Hunton, and Kevin Cahill at FTI Consulting.

  • Trump AI Order: Voluntary Framework, Mandatory Implications

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    President Donald Trump's recent executive order promoting the advancement of artificial intelligence innovation and security establishes a new framework for government collaboration with the AI industry, but its classified benchmarking criteria, prerelease framework terms and operational rules will determine whether it establishes de facto compliance expectations, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • A Midyear Look At Antiterrorism Act Jurisprudence And Policy

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    Plaintiffs have filed comparably fewer new actions under the Antiterrorism Act this year, though a handful of key decisions further defined the statute’s aiding-and-abetting standard and highlighted continuing risks for financial services companies, say attorneys at Skadden.

  • Drawing A Line Between Settlement Pressure And Extortion

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    U.S. v. Luo, pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, may force courts to address anew when settlement negotiations become criminal extortion, particularly in the age of easily fabricated digital evidence, says attorney Denis Kiely.

  • Responding To US Labeling Brazilian Gangs As Terrorist Orgs

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    The Trump administration's recent designation of two Brazilian criminal organizations as foreign terrorists affects companies in multiple sectors that must now assess their exposure and enhance their sanctions, know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering screening programs, say attorneys at King & Spalding.

  • Series

    Founding An Autism Academy Made Me A Better Lawyer

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    Starting a nonprofit autism school with no building, no funding model and no guarantee that families would trust us taught me the importance of mission, patience and purpose — lessons that sharpened my practice and showed how meaningful work outside the office can make lawyers better, says Phillip Russell at Ogletree Deakins.

  • Trump's AI Order Is Strategic, Not Merely Deregulatory

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    Although the framework presented in President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on artificial intelligence is styled as voluntary and innovation-friendly, it creates a new soft-power mechanism for bringing the most capable AI systems into closer alignment with federal security priorities, says Jesse Lemon at The Beckage Firm.

  • Opinion

    Rule Of Law Requires Gov't Engagement With Bar, Not Retreat

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    A federal agency's absence from national and local bar conferences, most recently illustrated by the U.S. Department of Justice's withdrawal from a New York City Bar Association white collar conference, disserves the bar, the government lawyers themselves and, ultimately, the administration of justice, says Muhammad Faridi at Linklaters.

  • Fed. Circ. Clarifies Standard For Contesting CICA Overrides

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    The Federal Circuit's recent holding in Life Science Logistics strengthens the hand of protesters facing an override of the Competition in Contracting Act stay, and a Court of Federal Claims decision the same day demonstrates that how a protester frames its requested relief remains critically important, says Richard Arnholt at Bass Berry.

  • The Paradoxical Duty To Adopt AI When You Can't Bill For It

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    Both billing for hours saved using artificial intelligence and preserving billable time by not adopting AI may violate rules of professional conduct, but until bar associations' ethics rules catch up to this emerging economic dilemma, firms must decide how to adjust fee structures themselves, says Ines Lassalle at Peyrot & Associates.

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