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Draft NIST Guidance Highlights Supply Chain Fundamentals as Key Practices in Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management

Client Alert | 1 min read | 02.21.20

Last week, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published the draft NISTIR 8276 “Key Practices in Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management” providing Key Practices and related recommendations for monitoring, controlling, and understanding how to conduct cyber – supply chain risk management (C-SCRM). The Eight Key Practices are general and apply equally, in practice, to both traditional supply chain management and C-SCRM, including:

  • Integrating SCRM across the organization,
  • Understanding the organization’s supply chain, and
  • Assessing and monitoring SCRM throughout the supplier relationship. 

Specific guidance includes, among others:

  • Increasing Board involvement in C-SCRM;
  • Understanding the cyber relationship with suppliers, including whether they process critical data; and
  • Using third-party assessments to evaluate suppliers.

The guidance should serve to remind organizations of the need to know their supply chain well and to have a purposeful approach to its management. Organizations have an opportunity to comment on this draft guidance until March 4, 2020.

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Client Alert | 5 min read | 12.12.25

Eleventh Circuit Hears Argument on False Claims Act Qui Tam Constitutionality

On the morning of December 12, 2025, the Eleventh Circuit heard argument in United States ex rel. Zafirov v. Florida Medical Associates, LLC, et al., No. 24-13581 (11th Cir. 2025). This case concerns the constitutionality of the False Claims Act (FCA) qui tam provisions and a groundbreaking September 2024 opinion in which the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida held that the FCA’s qui tam provisions were unconstitutional under Article II. See United States ex rel. Zafirov v. Fla. Med. Assocs., LLC, 751 F. Supp. 3d 1293 (M.D. Fla. 2024). That decision, penned by District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, was the first success story for a legal theory that has been gaining steam ever since Justices Thomas, Barrett, and Kavanaugh indicated they would be willing to consider arguments about the constitutionality of the qui tam provisions in U.S. ex rel. Polansky v. Exec. Health Res., 599 U.S. 419 (2023). In her opinion, Judge Mizelle held (1) qui tam relators are officers of the U.S. who must be appointed under the Appointments Clause; and (2) historical practice treating qui tam and similar relators as less than “officers” for constitutional purposes was not enough to save the qui tam provisions from the fundamental Article II infirmity the court identified. That ruling was appealed and, after full briefing, including by the government and a bevy of amici, the litigants stepped up to the plate this morning for oral argument....

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