1. Home
  2. |Insights
  3. |State Slammed For Adopting GAO Recommendation

State Slammed For Adopting GAO Recommendation

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 08.22.07

In Grunley Walsh Int'l v. U.S. (Fed. Cl. Aug. 3, 2007), in which Crowell & Moring represented the successful plaintiff, the Court of Federal Claims held that the Department of State acted arbitrarily when it adopted a GAO recommendation to reverse its own, longstanding interpretation of the total business volume requirement in the Diplomatic Construction Program statute (22 U.S.C. § 4852). The government argued that the court must defer to State's revised interpretation, but the Court refused to do so, because that would "effectively strip this court of any real review in any case where the agency followed a recommendation of the GAO on an interpretation of a statute or regulation."

Contacts

Insights

Client Alert | 3 min read | 04.14.26

DOJ’s False Claims Act Resolution Against IBM Signals Heightened Risk for Federal Contractors with DEI Programs

On Friday, April 10, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) has agreed to pay just over $17 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by failing to comply with federal anti-discrimination requirements incorporated into its federal contracts due to allegedly discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) employment practices. This resolution marks the first FCA settlement secured by the DOJ under its Civil Rights Fraud Initiative, created in May 2025, and announced by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as part of the administration’s coordinated efforts to target allegedly unlawful DEI practices. Per the agreement, the settlement is neither an admission of liability by IBM nor a concession by the United States that its claims are not well founded....