Suspension and Debarment

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Earlier this month, we had the pleasure of opening the 2017 Associated General Contractors of America Federal Contractor Conference in Washington, DC with a presentation focused on the emerging issue of Cybersecurity in Federal contracting.  Data breaches are big news in the private sector, but the issue has remained somewhat under the radar for…

The U.S. Department of Justice is maintaining its momentum in the prosecution of alleged government contracting fraud.  DOJ had its third largest year ever in terms of civil False Claims Act recoveries in Fiscal Year 2016, clawing back $4.7 billion from government contractors accused of misconduct.  And the latest trends for 2017 show that individual…

We are currently in the midst of an unprecedented uptick in the prosecution of (alleged) government contractor fraud under vehicles such as the False Claims Act and agency suspension and debarment programs.  Generally speaking, the government uses these methods to claw back Federal contracting dollars from contractors suspected of engaging in unethical practices and…

The 2014 numbers are in – and they confirm that Federal marketplace remains volatile for government contractors.

According to the Interagency Suspension and Debarment Committee (ISDC), Federal agencies saw an uptick of about 14% in suspension and debarment proceedings.  Such exclusion proceedings remain among the chief tactics for combating alleged instances of fraud…

Bottom Line Up Front: This blog post updates several of our previous posts addressing the implementation of the minimum wage for federal contractors. The FAR Council issued an interim rule on December 15, 2014, which establishes a new FAR provision – FAR 52.222-55 – governing the federal minimum wage. Specifically, the minimum wage is set…

Bottom Line Up Front:  OCI exists when work performed by a contractor on a federal contract may: (a) result in an unfair competitive advantage for the contractor; or (b) impair the contractor’s objectivity in performing federal contract work.  OCI or the appearance of OCI must be avoided at all costs because OCI can lead to …

The SBA Inspector General recently determined that over $400 million in small business awards were awarded to firms that were not eligible small businesses at the time of award.  These awards were apparently issued in error by various agencies, but were used to inflate the federal government’s overall small business award results.

Further, the SBA…

Veridyne Corp., an 8(a) small business concern, was subject to fraud and false statement claims by the U.S. Department of Transportation (UDOT) for undervaluing an estimate to perform a task order contract extension.  The Federal Circuit recently denied Veridyne’s request for payment of approximately $1 million claimed owed under the task order.  See Veridyne Corp.…

Continuing our week-long series focusing the Small Business Administration’s (“SBA”) small business development programs – today we take a look at programs specifically created to benefit service-disabled veterans of the United States military (the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business programs, or more commonly, “SDVOSB”).

Just as with the SBA’s 8(a) program that we discussed yesterday,…

Perhaps the greatest government contracting pitfall to avoid is suspension and debarment – a tool used by agencies to exclude contractors that engage in misconduct from receiving federal contracts and grants.  However, despite the harsh consequences associated with exclusion proceedings, the number of suspensions and debarments is actually on the rise, having more than doubled…