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Alexis Victoria DeBernardis is a counsel in the Washington, D.C. office. She is a member of the Antitrust & Competition Group, where her practice focuses on representing corporate clients in a wide range of antitrust issues, including competitor collaborations, mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and issues related to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act. Her experience covers several industries, in particular, healthcare providers and payors, aerospace and defense, telecommunications, and financial services.

On June 23, 2022, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against Army contractor Envistacom LLC and two of its executives alleging participation in a fraudulent scheme that deprived the federal government of competition and making false representations to the government in furtherance of the conspiracy. The indictment also charged the executive as a co-conspirator, and asserts the conspirators coordinated in the preparation of so-called “competitive quotes” submitted in connection with 8(a) set aside contracts. The quotes were allegedly fraudulently inflated in order to all but guarantee the government customer would sole source the award to the conspirators’ pre-determined bidder. This indictment represents the fruits of yet another investigation by the Department of Justice’s Procurement Collusion Strike Force (“PCSF”).

According to the indictment, the defendants conspired to prepare and secure “sham” pricing quotes from third-party companies that were intentionally higher than Envistacom’s proposals to ensure that the government issued sole source awards to Envistacom. Further, the defendants allegedly coordinated with an unnamed government employee who acted as a co-conspirator and assisted in preparing and submitting Independent Government Cost Estimates (“IGCE”) for certain set aside contracts to ensure that the pre-determined bidder’s proposal would be lower than the IGCEs. Finally, the indictment alleges that the defendants made “false statements, representations, and material omissions to federal government contracting officials” about the IGCEs being “legitimate” and the sham quotes being “competitive.”

Continue Reading Procurement Collusion Strike Force Nabs Another Military Contractor in Bid Rigging Scheme

In the latest phase of a case proving that there is no amount of anticompetitive activity too small to escape prosecution, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice is continuing its efforts to thwart anticompetitive activity in public procurements, striking a plea deal with a Missouri individual in connection with rigging bids at online

As part of its annual Spring Update, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice touted the expansion and early success of its Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF), both in coordinating efforts among local, state, and federal enforcers and in leveraging the resources and skills of those stakeholders to identify potential antitrust violations in government procurements. The DOJ stood up the PCSF in late 2019 with a team of United States Attorneys’ offices from 13 districts and investigative and law enforcement agents from five partner agencies, including the FBI, the Department of Defense, the GSA, and the U.S. Postal Service; it now boasts 22 U.S. Attorneys’ offices, as well as new “like-minded” partners from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the Department of Homeland Security OIG.
Continue Reading Antitrust Division Praises Early Success and Heralds New Endeavors for Procurement Collusion Strike Force

Just days after the anniversary of its launch, the Department of Justice’s Procurement Collusion Strike Force has expanded its ranks to include 11 new national partners. The U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, as well as nine additional U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, have joined the

Late Friday, the Department of Justice announced its first charges under the Procurement Collusion Strike Force. A federal grand jury seated in the Eastern District of North Carolina returned a six-count indictment against Ohio-based Contech Engineered Solutions LLC and its former executive for their involvement in a decade-long conspiracy to rig bids for North Carolina

The U.S. Justice Department recently recommended that other countries consider focusing on collusion in government procurement, touting the early success of its interagency strike force. During yesterday’s virtual meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Competition Committee, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim introduced the Antitrust Division’s recently formed Procurement Collusion Strike Force

On Tuesday, the ABA’s Antitrust and Public Contract Law Sections held a panel discussion with DOJ and other government enforcers to provide an update regarding the PCSF’s most recent activities. According to Mark Grundvig, Assistant Chief of Washington Criminal II at the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division and Marcus Mills, Special Agent of Major

On February 18, 2020, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) Inspector General Geoffrey A. Cherrington announced a partnership between WMATA Office of Inspector General special agents and the Department of Justice’s Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF).

This new law enforcement partnership underscores the PCSF’s willingness to team up with state and local agencies to aggressively