Will Cyber War Come to a Contract Near You?
Client Alert | 1 min read | 02.01.12
Cyber war has arrived: Sec. Panetta warns of a "digital Pearl Harbor," the Stuxnet cyber missile penetrates Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility, and cyber attacks shut down power grids in other countries, as discussed in David Bodenheimer's article "Cyberwarefare in the Stuxnet Age: Can Cannonball Law Keep Pace with the Digital Battlefield?" in the ABA's SciTech Lawyer. Focusing on what cyber warfare means for the private sector, this article explains how government contractors supporting offensive or defensive cyber operations (or even just standing by) face unprecedented and potentially ruinous legal liability for cyber weapons gone awry, multi-billion-dollar class actions for assisting federal agencies in authentication efforts to track down covert cyber adversaries, and huge economic losses when private information networks must be disconnected, shut down, or disabled due to foreign cyber infections or botnets, leaving the private sector to ask who foots the bill.
Insights
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.21.25
On November 7, 2025, in Thornton v. National Academy of Sciences, No. 25-cv-2155, 2025 WL 3123732 (D.D.C. Nov. 7, 2025), the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a False Claims Act (FCA) retaliation complaint on the basis that the plaintiff’s allegations that he was fired after blowing the whistle on purported illegally discriminatory use of federal funding was not sufficient to support his FCA claim. This case appears to be one of the first filed, and subsequently dismissed, following Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s announcement of the creation of the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative on May 19, 2025, which “strongly encourages” private individuals to file lawsuits under the FCA relating to purportedly discriminatory and illegal use of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in violation of Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21, 2025). In this case, the court dismissed the FCA retaliation claim and rejected the argument that an organization could violate the FCA merely by “engaging in discriminatory conduct while conducting a federally funded study.” The analysis in Thornton could be a sign of how forthcoming arguments of retaliation based on reporting allegedly fraudulent DEI activity will be analyzed in the future.
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.19.25
