Mana Elihu Lombardo is a partner in Crowell & Moring's Government Contracts Group in Los Angeles. She concentrates her practice on government contracts litigation and counseling. Mana serves on the Steering Committee for the firm’s False Claims Act working group, and has extensive experience defending companies under the False Claims Act (FCA). She conducts internal investigations and counsels on public sector contract compliance and procurement fraud. She also counsels clients on CARES Act Paycheck Protection Program loans to analyze eligibility and assess and prepare for risks of audits and enforcement actions.
Mana litigates a variety of procurement fraud matters against the Department of Justice, local public entities, and "qui tam" whistleblowers under the Federal and California State False Claims Acts. She represents a range of industries, including aerospace, defense, information technology services, healthcare, education and national laboratories, environmental consulting, construction, security services, energy, data reporting and analytics, and accounting and budget services. She also co-hosts the firm’s False Claims Act Podcast: Let’s Talk FCA.
Mana’s government contracts practice includes a range of counseling, litigation, and transactional capabilities, including due diligence in the transactional context, negotiations and disputes between prime and subcontractors, government audits and investigations, procurement integrity, cost allowability, organizational conflicts of interest, mandatory disclosure, compliance review, and counseling on other ethics and compliance issues under the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS).
In addition, Mana handles a range of civil litigation matters, including contract disputes, business torts, labor and employment issues, and class action defense. Mana has successfully defended clients at trial and has appeared and argued before federal and state trial and appellate courts. She has extensive experience developing and implementing litigation strategy as well as managing the process of large litigation matters. She works closely with clients to guide them through mediation and settlement proceedings.
Representative Matters:
- Obtained trial verdict for a major federal contractor in the aerospace industry against a whistleblower complaint alleging over one billion dollars in damages for false testing, fraudulent underbidding, and employment retaliation under the False Claims Act.
- Seconded as Associate General Counsel to Fortune 100 Aerospace company in division managing prime government and defense contracts.
- Obtained summary judgment verdict dismissing with prejudice qui tam action alleging fraudulent review of Veteran’s medical records (C.D. Cal, aff’d at Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals).
- Represented local contractor that faced over $2.5 million in fraudulent billing allegations based on government audit alleging labor mischarging and illegal kickbacks. Obtained a favorable settlement which dismissed all claims against the contractor, converted the government's termination for default into a termination for convenience, and compensated the contractor for monies owed by the government at the time of termination.
- Managed internal investigation for major government contractor involving allegations of false testing under the FCA. Representation successfully resulted in the Department of Justice declining to intervene in the case and relator dismissing the action.
- Represented IT services provider in transaction for the sale of its State and Local Health and Human Services business division.
- Represented IT services provider in transaction to spin off its public sector contracts division.
- Successfully obtained a summary judgment verdict for a defense industry client in a multi-million dollar interference with contract action involving procurement of military vehicle components for a foreign government.
- Represented federal government contractor in audit negotiations with DCAA and DCMA, resulting in elimination and reduction of questioned costs.
- Represented federal government subcontractor in contract dispute involving sale of submarines to United States Armed Forces.
As part of the firm's pro bono work, Mana participates at a Legal Aid clinic where she counsels low-income families on various landlord/tenant issues. Through this work, Mana has obtained numerous dismissals through settlements and trial verdict for tenants facing eviction in unlawful detainer actions.
Mana graduated from the UCLA School of Law, where she was an editor of the UCLA Law Review. Mana earned her undergraduate degree, with honors, in political economy from the University of California at Berkeley. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and received both the Alumni Leadership Scholarship and the Robert Byrd Scholarship for four consecutive years.
In 2015-2019, Mana was recognized as a "Southern California Super Lawyer - Rising Star" in Government Contracts.