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Department of Labor Issues New Health & Welfare Fringe Benefits Rates for Contracts Covered by the Service Contract Act

Client Alert | 1 min read | 08.08.17

On July 25, 2017, the Department of Labor issued its annual memorandum increasing the health and welfare fringe benefits rate (H&W rate) for contracts covered by the Service Contract Act from $4.27 per hour to $4.41 per hour, with corresponding increases from $1.78 per hour to $1.91 per hour for Hawaii. In a new measure, the DOL set the H&W rate for contracts covered by Executive Order 13706, Establishing Paid Sick Leave for Federal Contractors, at $4.13 per hour ($ 1.63 per hour in Hawaii) to account for the additional paid sick leave benefits covered contractors must provide under E.O. 13706. These new H&W rates must be included in all bids or other service contracts awarded after August 1, 2017, but the rates do not automatically apply to existing contracts until contracting agencies modify the contracts with an updated wage determination.

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Client Alert | 4 min read | 05.18.26

(Not) All’s Weld That Ends Weld: Duty Evasion Scheme Ends in Historic $549.5M FCA Settlement

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the cross-agency Trade Fraud Task Force have upped the ante by an order of magnitude in the government’s pursuit of customs fraud. On May 1, 2026—only a few months after setting its previous record-high customs-related False Claims Act (FCA) settlement of $54.4 million with Ceratizit USA, LLC—the DOJ shattered that record with a $549.5 million settlement with Perfectus Aluminum Inc., its subsidiary Perfectus Aluminum Acquisitions LLC, and a set of four affiliated warehousing companies. The Perfectus settlement resolves allegations that the defendants violated the FCA by evading antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD). The settlement resolves three separate qui tam complaints filed by two individual relators and the Aluminum Extruders Council, an international industry association. Defendants were previously criminally convicted on charges related to the same scheme, and those convictions were affirmed by the Ninth Circuit in 2024....

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