ASBCA Dismisses "Conclusory" and "Unsupported" $100M Government Claim
Client Alert | 1 min read | 01.10.17
In Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems, Inc. (ASBCA Dec. 20, 2016), a case involving a $100 million breach of contract claim stemming from purportedly unallowable direct subcontractor costs, the Board granted Lockheed Martin’s motion to dismiss the Army’s claim "for failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted," concluding that the government had "gone forward with a claim for over $100,000,000…based on nothing more than a plainly invalid legal theory." Specifically, the Board held that final decisions based solely on an audit report’s "conclusory assertions" and "unsupported conclusions" failed to satisfy the standards required by the Board’s rules for a valid claim and that although prime contractors have a generalized responsibility to manage subcontractors, the Army failed to establish that Lockheed Martin had breached any particular contractual obligation, express or implied, and specifically that Lockheed Martin had no obligation to (1) obtain or audit incurred cost submissions from subcontractors; or (2) to retain documentation supporting prime contractor billings for longer than the contract’s "applicable records retention" period.
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Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.21.25
On November 7, 2025, in Thornton v. National Academy of Sciences, No. 25-cv-2155, 2025 WL 3123732 (D.D.C. Nov. 7, 2025), the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a False Claims Act (FCA) retaliation complaint on the basis that the plaintiff’s allegations that he was fired after blowing the whistle on purported illegally discriminatory use of federal funding was not sufficient to support his FCA claim. This case appears to be one of the first filed, and subsequently dismissed, following Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s announcement of the creation of the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative on May 19, 2025, which “strongly encourages” private individuals to file lawsuits under the FCA relating to purportedly discriminatory and illegal use of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in violation of Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21, 2025). In this case, the court dismissed the FCA retaliation claim and rejected the argument that an organization could violate the FCA merely by “engaging in discriminatory conduct while conducting a federally funded study.” The analysis in Thornton could be a sign of how forthcoming arguments of retaliation based on reporting allegedly fraudulent DEI activity will be analyzed in the future.
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