Costs of Air Travel Limited to the “Lowest Priced Airfare Available to the Contractor”
Client Alert | 1 min read | 12.14.09
By a final rule effective January 11, 2010, the travel cost principle (FAR 31.205-46) has been amended to limit the cost of air travel to the “lowest priced airfare available to the contractor,” except in limited circumstances. Instead of simply limiting a contractor's recovery of air travel costs for employees who are authorized to fly in premium classes to the lowest airfare available to that particular contractor based on agreements that particular contractor has negotiated with an airline – which is the stated purpose of the amendment – the new rule uses confusing language that is likely to be misinterpreted as imposing a broader limit on allowability that will be virtually impossible to administer in light of the variability in the price of air travel, including even different fares on the same flight, both for employees who are actually charged non-premium fares that are greater than the lowest theoretically "available" fare to a particular contractor and on the many contractors that do not even have negotiated agreements with airlines.
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
