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DoD Issues Final Rule on Allowability of Whistleblower Costs

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 07.28.14

On July 25, DoD, GSA, and NASA issued a final rule addressing the allowability of legal costs of a contractor or subcontractor related to whistleblower proceedings. The new rule amends FAR 31.205-47 to make such costs unallowable if the contractor is found liable for fraud or similar misconduct in the whistleblower proceeding, but also gives the same treatment of costs for settled whistleblower complaints as is currently provided for settlement of proceedings brought by a third party under the False Claims Act in which the United States does not intervene (i.e., costs may be allowable if there was very little likelihood that the whistleblower would have been successful).


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Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.12.26

DOJ Guidance Backs Away From Disparate Impact Liability

On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a formal opinion concluding that the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) existing interpretations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) disparate-impact liability, including the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), are unconstitutional. According to the opinion, EEOC’s prior interpretations contemplate liability based on disproportionately adverse effects alone, without regard to an employer’s likely intent, rather than treating disparate impact as an evidentiary mechanism to “smoke out” intentional discrimination. DOJ found that this approach functions as a “qualified racial-proportionality mandate” that places “a racial thumb on the scales, often requiring employers to evaluate the racial outcomes of their policies, and to make decisions based on (because of) those racial outcomes.” The opinion fulfills one mandate of Executive Order 14281, which rejected disparate-impact liability insofar as it “creates a near insurmountable presumption that unlawful discrimination exists wherever there are any differences in outcomes among different [demographic groups].”...

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