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As we discussed during Crowell & Moring’s webinar last week Top Headlines, Headaches, and Developments for Government Contractors to Watch in 2015, the recent ASBCA decision in Laguna Construction is likely to reverberate in 2015 and beyond. This case introduced the doctrine of “antecedent breach” in the ASBCA as a means of denying legitimate contractor claims.

In Laguna, after the completion of the contract, the contractor submitted a $3 million claim based on a dozen separate task orders under a large IDIQ contract. Mid-way through litigation, two contractor employees pled guilty to receiving kickbacks from subcontractors on some, but not all, of the Task Orders at issue in the litigation. The Government then added Fraud as an affirmative defense at the Board, arguing that Laguna’s entire claim should be denied because Laguna’s employees had pled to Fraud on some of the Task Orders.
Continue Reading Claims Practice Bulletin: Performance Fraud, Imputed Liability, and Antecedent Breach

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Several recent Board decisions have turned on issues that serve as a reminder to contracting parties that a critical element of litigating CDA claims is adherence to statutory requirements and the Board’s rules. In Appeal of WorleyParsons, the ASBCA dismissed the government’s claim for alleged CAS violations as a nullity under the CDA, for two fundamental reasons: (1) it could not hear an appeal concerning a contract with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq (CPA), because the CPA was not an “executive agency,” and (2) the Appellant named in the claim was a member of the JV that signed the contract, but not the JV itself.

The Board’s position on Contracts with the CPA relied on prior precedent (the MAC case) holding that the CPA was an international organization, and not an Executive Agency of the Government (which is a condition of the Board’s jurisdiction under the Contract Disputes Act). Thus, the Board lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal.
Continue Reading Recent ASBCA Decisions Offer Refresher on Adherence to Board and CDA Requirements