Bad Alchemy: Turning Estimates Into Fraud

Building on comments at the Nash & Cibinic Roundtable, David Bodenheimer challenges the oxymoronic trend of government agencies and qui tam whistleblowers to assert defective pricing or false claims based upon second-guessing poor estimates. In his article "'False' or 'Inaccurate' Estimates" published in the December 2005 Briefing Paper (http://www.crowell.com/pdf/Expertise/GovtContracts/BriefingPapers_Bodenheimer.pdf), he explains that estimating -- due to its inherently risky and predictive nature -- requires judgmental forecasts long recognized as appropriate by government pricing guidelines and not suitable for defective pricing and fraud suits complaining about bad estimates of future events.