By Pamela J. Bethel Government contractors and subcontractors need to carefully scrutinize the Supreme Court’s important June 16 ruling on a key False Claims Act. In a unanimous decision that has delighted lawyers for claimants under the FCA, the Court endorsed a potent theory of FCA liability known as “implied false certification.” The closely watched...
Tag: Fraud
A Compliance Checklist for Federal Contractors — Part 1
We may not often think of them this way, but government contractors are perhaps the most heavily regulated sector of our economy. Any company that wishes to work steadily in the federal contracting field needs to be aware of dozens of statutes that govern its behavior. In fact, it will take more than one...
As DOJ Gets Tough on Fraud, Compliance Needs to Ramp Up
By Pamela J. Bethel On September 17, 2014, Leslie Caldwell, assistant U.S. attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division, addressed many key issues about the federal False Claims Act in a major speech at the Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund Conference in Washington, D.C. The Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund brings together whistleblowers who...
Cautionary Tales: Don’t Assume Your Emails Will Remain Private
By Pamela J. Bethel Anyone who is pursuing or defending white-collar criminals these days knows that the essence of any case is usually what is found in the defendants’ emails. It’s a pretty good assumption that anything you say in an email will eventually be found out — and that therefore before writing an email...
This Type of Whistle-Blower Protection Just Isn’t Needed
By Marilyn Della-Badia Jill Aitoro of the Washington Business Journal reported on Jan. 25, 2013, that there’s some concern in the government procurement community that a new law to protect defense contractor employees who blow the whistle on their own companies for procurement fraud doesn’t go far enough. The concern is that contractors don’t receive...
U.S. Announces Recovery of $422 Million in Contract Fraud in FY 2011
By Carol L. O’Riordan The Justice Department announced on Dec. 19, 2011, that it recovered $422 million in fiscal year 2011 in procurement fraud cases. The total amount recovered for procurement fraud in the last three fiscal years exceeds $1.5 billion, a record for any three-year period. It’s clear that procurement and contract fraud are...