February 2013

Photo of Rob Sneckenberg

On January 29th, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum requiring agencies to “determine and document final decisions to in-source” and requiring contracting officers to notify their affected incumbent contractors within 20 days of receipt of such in-sourcing decisions.

The memorandum, titled “Private Sector Notification Requirements in Support of In-Sourcing Actions,&rdquo

Complaints alleging violations of the False Claims Act (“FCA”) must satisfy Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b), which requires the government or qui tam relator to “state with particularity the circumstances constituting fraud.” In order to ferret out fishing expeditions, many courts have held that Rule 9(b) requires plaintiffs to allege the who, what, when,

Photo of Olivia Lynch

The Government Accountability Office recently rejected a novel argument regarding how timeliness is to be determined for GAO protests filed after an agency either dismisses or denies an agency-level protest.  In finding that the timeliness of such a protest does not depend on the nature of the adverse agency action, GAO has effectively prevented an agency from dismissing an agency-level protest without considering the merits of the protest, and then moving to dismiss on timeliness grounds at GAO so as to preclude any review on the merits.

In Logis-Tech, Inc., B-407687, Jan. 24, 2013, 2013 CPD ¶ –, the United States Marine Corps argued that the protest should be dismissed as untimely because, by first filing an "unauthorized" agency-level protest, the protester missed its chance to file at GAO within 10 days of its debriefing.  The relevant timeline of events is that: on September 26th, the Marine Corps notified vendors of award and sent debriefing letters to each of the offerors; nine days later, on October 5th, Logis-Tech filed an agency-level protest with the contracting officer; seven days after that, on October 12th, the Marine Corps dismissed the agency-level protest on the basis that it lacked jurisdiction; and then, on October 16th, Logis-Tech filed its protest at GAO.Continue Reading Application of GAO’s Timeliness Rules for GAO Protests Filed after Agency-Level Protest Is the Same Regardless of the Nature of the Adverse Agency Action

Photo of Kate M. Growley, CIPP/G, CIPP/US

After years of abortive attempts by Congress to enact comprehensive cybersecurity legislation, the President took matters into his own hands on February 12, signing an Executive Order, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.  Identifying the cyber threat as “one of the most serious national security challenges we must confront,” this Order, along with its contemporaneous Presidential

Photo of Peter J. Eyre

At 2:00 p.m. EST on February 27, 2013, Crowell & Moring Attorneys Peter Eyre, Andy Liu, Rebecca Springer, and Jason Lynch will conduct a webinar on the implications of the FY2013 NDAA’s new whistleblower protections for government contractors. The webinar will offer analysis of the expanded protections, define and discuss “retaliation” as defined under the

In another example of the Court of Federal Claims ("Court") and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reaching different conclusions, the Court sustained a $32 million protest in a recent decision brought against the Department of Veterans Affairs ("VA"), whereas GAO had dismissed the protest as untimely on the grounds that LabCorp should have protested what

Photo of Olivia Lynch

Since the emergence of cybersecurity and privacy as high risk issues in the public sector, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has been at the forefront – identifying risks, reviewing progress of federal agencies, and keeping Congress informed on the latest developments in the cyber and technology arena.  In this role, GAO has reported on the