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Déjà Vu: Congress Orders DCAA to Revise Guidance on Access to Internal Audit Reports

Client Alert | 1 min read | 01.15.13

Section 832 of the FY 2013 NDAA requires DCAA to issue new guidance on access to contractors' internal audit reports to "ensure" that requests for access to them "are appropriately documented," following guidance issued by the agency in August 2012. The revised guidance will require DCAA to keep tabs on such requests and responses to them, but sets limits on what internal audit reports can be used for and stops short of language in the Senate version of the bill, under which the contractor's refusal to provide access would have been "a basis for disapproving the contractor business system or systems."


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Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.21.25

A Sign of What’s to Come? Court Dismisses FCA Retaliation Complaint Based on Alleged Discriminatory Use of Federal Funding

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....

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