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The Wait Is Over for Women-Owned Small Businesses

Client Alert | 1 min read | 04.11.11

Women-owned small businesses (WOSBs) should now have greater access to federal contracts as a result of a long-awaited interim rule, published April 1, 2011, which provides guidelines for the WOSB program and allows COs to set aside contracts for certified WOSBs and economically-disadvantaged WOSBs. However, despite the momentum from these new regulations and the SBA's intent to provide WOSBs "with the oxygen they need to take their business to the next level," until the SBA approves third-party certifiers, access to government contracts for non-8(a) WOSBs will be limited to a self-certifying entities and contingent upon the submission of a laundry list of corporate and other documentation for each procurement, thus imposing burdens on WOSBs and COs.

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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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