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R-E-V-I-E-W Does Not Spell R-E-L-I-E-F

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 12.06.04

Rejecting the contention that, after finding arbitrary and capricious conduct by procurement officials, the award must be declared invalid and set aside, the Federal Circuit in PGBA v. U.S. (Nov. 22, 2004) says that a court is to apply the normal balancing of the equities, including the public interest, when deciding whether to grant an injunction after finding for a protester on the merits. Congress only adopted the review provisions of section 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act, the court explained, not its seemingly mandatory relief provisions.

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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....