On January 26, 2017, the Fourth Circuit heard oral argument in United States ex rel. Omar Badr v. Triple Canopy, one of four False Claims Act decisions that the Supreme Court vacated and remanded for further consideration in light of the Court’s June 2016 holding regarding the implied certification theory in Universal Health Servs. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, 136 S. Ct. 1989 (2016). In Triple Canopy, the relator alleges that a security contractor responsible for ensuring the safety of an air base in a combat zone knowingly employed guards who allegedly falsified marksmanship scores, and presented claims to the government for payment for those unqualified guards. The defendant prevailed on a motion to dismiss at the district court after demonstrating that the government failed to plead that it ever reviewed — and therefore ever relied on — the allegedly false scorecards. United States ex rel. Badr v. Triple Canopy, Inc., 950 F. Supp. 2d 888 (E.D. Va. 2013). The Fourth Circuit reversed, explaining: “Common sense strongly suggests that the Government’s decision to pay a contractor for providing base security in an active combat zone would be influenced by knowledge that the guards could not, for lack of a better term, shoot straight … If Triple Canopy believed that the marksmanship requirement was immaterial to the Government’s decision to pay, it was unlikely to orchestrate a scheme to falsify records on multiple occasions.” 775 F.3d 628, 637–38 (4th Cir. 2015).
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Crowell & Moring’s “Fastest 5 Minutes” is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be without, with the latest edition hosted by partners David Robbins and Peter Eyre and including updates on GSA, NASA, and DoD rules, DIUx’s
Crowell & Moring’s “Fastest 5 Minutes” is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be without. This latest edition is hosted by partners David Robbins and Peter Eyre and includes updates on defense acquisition, modernizing federal IT systems,
To disclose or not to disclose-that is not the only question.
The Mandatory Disclosure Rule can be challenging for government contractors to work with, and common methods of analyzing disclosure obligations cause contractors to miss potentially significant risks to their enterprise. The requirement to timely disclose credible evidence of a Federal criminal law involving fraud, conflict of interests, bribery or gratuity violations, violations of the civil False Claims Act, or significant overpayments on federal government contracts can be challenging to interpret. The terms “timely disclose,” “credible evidence,” and “significant overpayments” are not defined in the rule, and no authoritative guidance is available about their meaning or their interpretations. As a result, contractors spend significant time and money assessing whether – and when – a disclosure is required, and then crafting their disclosures to help explain their analysis.
“False Claims Act cases have been particularly hot in 2015”—so reads the opening line of an opinion in a FCA decision from the past year. This is an apt description for a year that saw total FCA recoveries exceed $3 billion, a sign that the FCA will continue to be the source of government and
On September 29, 2015, the Fourth Circuit agreed to hear an interlocutory appeal in U.S. ex rel. Michaels et al. v. Agape Senior Community, Inc. to address whether the statistical method of extrapolation may be used to prove liability, in addition to damages, under the False Claims Act. The Fourth Circuit will be the first
Last week, in a case that will have a significant impact on the government contracting industry, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, a False Claims Act (FCA) case from the First Circuit. By agreeing to hear the case, the Court appears set to resolve a
Partner Mark Troy, in this three-part video series, provides an overview of the trends in False Claims Act litigation that are likely to affect companies in the coming year, including the proper measure of damages and how to deal with whistleblower employees and enforce contractual releases.
All three videos are embedded below for viewing. For
Earlier this year, Crowell & Moring assembled an interdisciplinary team of attorneys to begin reporting on legal developments regarding whistleblowers. The result is the Whistleblower Watch blog (whistleblowerwatch.com), on which more than 15 contributing authors post about everything from the False Claims Act to Sarbanes-Oxley to the SEC. They monitor legislation and case