Chance to Change Pricing Generally Required After Corrective Action
Client Alert | 1 min read | 10.27.11
The GAO in Power Connector, Inc. (Aug. 15, 2011), reiterated that, when an agency changes a solicitation evaluation criteria in a material way as part of corrective action, it must allow offerors in the next round of proposals to alter their price – even when the change has no obvious relationship to pricing – because the offeror may have submitted a more competitive price had it known that its proposal would be less competitive in another evaluation area. In response to agency concerns about the protestor having an unfair advantage in the recompetition as a result of learning of other offerors’ pricing during its debriefing, GAO instructed that the proper remedy was to level the playing field by disclosing all prices to all offerors, rather than to forbid price changes.
For further analysis, click here for related blog post by James Peyster.
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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
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