False Estimates: A Misguided Notion Under The FCA
Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 07.22.05
Just as Russian officials have sought to hold weather forecasters liable for bad predictions, some qui tam relators and federal agencies have sought to stretch the False Claims Act (FCA) to impose liability for false estimates. In his article "The Strange Notion of Estimates as Fraud: Will Weather Predictions Be Next Under the False Claims Act?" published in The Procurement Lawyer (Summer 2005 http://www.crowell.com/pdf/BodenheimerSUM05.pdf), David Z. Bodenheimer explains that these "false estimate" allegations cannot be squared with common law rules that generally exclude opinions and predictions as a basis for fraud, FCA requirements that demand objective (not subjective) proof of falsity, and basic federal procurement standards that recognize the subjectivity inherent in estimating future costs.
Insights
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On June 17, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ( National Security Division (NSD) announced that it had issued a declination for Robert Bosch GmbH (Bosch) relating to potential violations of the Export Control Reform Act, 50 U.S.C. § 4819 (ECRA). Specifically, the DOJ declined to criminally prosecute Bosch’s violations of the Export Administration Regulations’ (EAR) Foreign Direct Product Rule (FDPR), which apparently resulted from two Bosch subsidiaries’ export of products and software manufactured with equipment that was the direct product of U.S. software or technology to Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. and its “Entity List” affiliates, including Huawei Tech. Investment Co., Ltd., Hong Kong (collectively, Huawei). The same day, the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced a parallel civil administrative settlement with Bosch.
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