Statute of Limitations Runs from Receipt of Auditable Information

Apr.04.2012

The six-year statute of limitations on contract claims begins to run when either party's cause of action "accrues," defined in FAR 33.201 as "the date when all events, that fix the alleged liability of either the Government or the contractor and permit assertion of the claim, were known or should have been known." Several prior decisions have held that a government claim accrued no later than the date on which it is identified and quantified in an audit report, but in Raytheon Co. v. U.S. (Apr. 02, 2012), the Court of Federal Claims held that the government claim had accrued, not when the costs at issue were first audited (2003), but instead when Raytheon submitted to the government all of the information that was needed to audit the costs and assert a claim (1999).

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