Congress Considers Tweaking IT Spending
Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 10.17.16
On October 5, the Senate Finance Committee sent a letter to commercial information technology providers requesting information about “whether federal agencies, to the fullest extent possible, incorporate preexisting, commercial and non-developmental IT solutions into their modernization efforts and if not, the barriers to their doing so.” Noting that the federal government spent about $80 billion on IT in FY 2015, the committee requested “recommendations” sent to ITContracting@finance.senate.gov by November 2, 2016, for how competition for IT contracts could be broadened by increased use of commercial contracting procedures and fixed-price contracts or changes to evaluation criteria and source selection factors.
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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
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.19.25
