Procurement Fraud Lawyers Helping You Uphold the Integrity of Government Spending

Every year, federal and state governments spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a variety of goods and services that range from health care and education to military defense and cybersecurity. And every year, whistleblowers expose government contractors and subcontractors who engage in fraudulent schemes that undermine these government contracts and line their pockets at the expense of the public.

• Procurement fraud occurs when government contractors or subcontractors engage in schemes to cheat federal and state governments, undermining contracts and misusing public funds.
• Types of procurement fraud include lying about goods or services and lying to obtain or retain contracts.
• These schemes waste taxpayer dollars, undermine fair competition, and compromise the integrity of government procurement systems.

Whistleblowers have the power to reveal the truth of these schemes and protect both government spending and public trust. Our lawyers at Whistleblower Partners LLP are committed to supporting and empowering whistleblowers in the fight against procurement fraud.

Procurement Fraud Schemes Generally Fall Into Two Categories

Lying About the Goods or Services Provided

One common way contractors can cheat the government is by lying about the goods or services they are providing. That can take a few different forms.

First, they may misrepresent the goods or services provided or falsely claim that they meet important contractual or quality assurance and testing requirements. A classic example is selling the government guns that don’t shoot.

Second, they may misrepresent that their goods or services comply with state and federal regulatory regimes, including:

• Cybersecurity requirements imposed by state and federal governments;
• The Buy American Act, trade agreements, and other export control laws;
• The Davis-Bacon Act and other prevailing wage requirements.

Third, they may inflate their payments from the government by lying about the costs necessary to provide the goods or services, such as:

• Artificially inflating costs that are passed through to the government;
• Cross-charging or shifting costs between government contracts;
• Misallocating costs from private contracts to government payors.

Fourth, contractors may illegally overstate the prices the government should pay for the goods or services by violating rules that mandate specific discounts for government payors, such as:

• “Most favored customer” or “best pricing” requirements;
• Price reduction clauses;
• Truth in Negotiation Act requirements.

Lying to Get or Keep a Government Contract

The second type of common government contracting fraud involves lying or cheating to get a contract. This type of fraud can include all manner of misrepresentations, but it often falls into one of a few categories, including:

• Misrepresentations about a contractor’s or subcontractor’s ability to perform on a contract;
• Misrepresentations regarding a contractor’s or subcontractor’s disadvantaged business status, such as false claims of being a small business or minority-, woman-, or service-disabled veteran-owned business;
• Bid-rigging or bribery schemes.

Whistleblower Partners Are Experienced Procurement Fraud Lawyers

The lawyers at Whistleblower Partners have decades of experience in procurement fraud cases and have successfully brought many of the largest government contracting enforcement actions over the last several decades, including the largest settlement to date related to Iraq war fraud, the first successfully resolved cybersecurity case under the False Claims Act, a bid-rigging case that led to the creation of a new procurement collusion strike force within the Department of Justice, and a case against the four largest wireless carriers in the country.