Later Reg Trumps Contract Clause Again
Client Alert | 1 min read | 07.28.05
In Fluor Hanford Inc. v. U.S. (July 1, 2005), the Court of Federal Claims upheld the contracting officer's disallowance of 20 percent of the costs of successfully defending a False Claims Act case, holding that a specific contractual provision in a 1996 DOE M&O contract promising to reimburse the contractor for all costs of civil actions that arose from conditions that existed before the contractor assumed responsibility for the plant was effectively trumped by 2001 changes to the FAR imposing an 80 percent limit on the allowability of legal fees incurred in the successful defense of qui tam actions under the False Claims Act in which the Government did not intervene. The decision relies on the Federal Circuit's analysis in Boeing N. Am., Inc. v. Roche, 298 F.3d 1274 (Fed. Cir. 2002), and, with the ASBCA decision in Southwest Marine decided in February, this case reflects a disturbing trend to ignore specific contractual provisions about allowability in favor of substantive regulatory changes made years after the contract was awarded that the Federal Circuit characterized as a "clarification" with retroactive effect.
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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.
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.19.25
