Government Contracts

  • November 18, 2025

    Lower Costs No Cause For VA To Shirk Trade Act, Judge Says

    A federal judge said the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs can't use the lower cost of drugs from countries not designated under the Trade Agreements Act to reject the higher prices of companies that propose to source them from compliant countries.

  • November 18, 2025

    Federal Watchdog Funds Released After Bipartisan Pushback

    The independent agency for federal watchdogs has been brought back to life with the White House budget office restoring its funding.

  • November 18, 2025

    MVP: Nichols Law's Carla Weiss

    Carla Weiss, who leads Nichols Law LLP's bid protest practice, delivered back-to-back protest wins including the U.S. Government Accountability Office's sustain of Anika Systems' challenge to a $68.8 million data strategy task order, earning her a spot as one of the 2025 Law360 Government Contracts MVPs.

  • November 18, 2025

    NJ Township Seeks To Revise $2.5B DuPont PFAS Settlement

    Carneys Point Township, New Jersey, is aiming to intervene in the state's federal suit against E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. and others over PFAS contamination, saying a settlement of more than $2.5 billion interferes with its own claims against the company.

  • November 18, 2025

    Insurer Needn't Cover LA Zoo Org. In City Contract Dispute

    An insurer doesn't owe coverage to the Los Angeles Zoo's nonprofit arm in a contractual dispute brought by the city, a California federal court has ruled, finding that all claims are excluded under the association's nonprofit asset protection policy.

  • November 17, 2025

    DC Circ. Backs DOT's SkyWest Contract Over Rival's Bid

    The D.C. Circuit rejected a claim from Southern Airways Express that the U.S. Department of Transportation erred in passing over the airline's proposal to provide service at a West Virginia airport, finding the department thoroughly evaluated all the bids it received.  

  • November 17, 2025

    Medtronic Can't Nix FCA Claims Despite 1st Circ. Precedent

    A Massachusetts federal judge reconsidered reviving Medtronic's bid to defeat claims it violated the False Claims Act in light of new First Circuit precedent on a causation standard, but ruled that a whistleblower's evidence warranted keeping the claims alive for now.

  • November 17, 2025

    Kansas City Bank Can't Nix Cert. Over Inmate Debit Card Fees

    A Washington federal judge has denied the Central Bank of Kansas City's bid to decertify a nationwide class in a suit accusing it of charging former jail inmates unfair fees on prepaid debit cards, billing the motion as "premature" on Friday while leaving room for the bank to raise the issue again later.

  • November 17, 2025

    Judge Mulls Blocking Trump's Conditions For Disaster Grants

    An Illinois federal judge considering whether to block the Trump administration from imposing certain conditions on recipients of federal emergency funds probed counsel for local governments suing over them about the scope of the relief they are seeking and questioned if the federal government's terms go beyond what Congress intended in funding the grants.

  • November 17, 2025

    'Astounding' Holland & Knight Conduct Drives Liability Ruling

    Holland & Knight LLP has forfeited a malpractice lawsuit in Alaska by refusing to turn over information to a Native American corporation, with a state judge entering a default judgment as a sanction and calling the firm's conduct "a head scratcher" and "astounding."

  • November 17, 2025

    GAO Backs Protest Over $1.8M FEC Accounting Deal

    The Federal Election Commission failed to sufficiently consider a potential conflict when it awarded a $1.8 million blanket purchase agreement for accounting support to a company already providing it with procurement support, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said.

  • November 17, 2025

    MVP: Mayer Brown's John R. Prairie

    John R. Prairie, a government contracts partner with Mayer Brown LLP, successfully challenged a $254 million other transaction agreement award issued by the Space Development Agency and represented an incumbent contractor in getting the U.S. Army to let it compete for a more than $10 billion contract, earning him a spot as one of the 2025 Law360 Government Contracts MVPs.

  • November 14, 2025

    9th Circ. Judge Rips Feds For 'Trying To Suppress Speech'

    A Ninth Circuit panel expressed doubts Friday about the Trump administration's request to reconsider an order reinstating billions of dollars in University of California research grants in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, with one judge objecting that "the government is trying to suppress, to penalize speech."

  • November 14, 2025

    DC Circ. Mulls Reviving Guinea $21M Award Suit

    A D.C. Circuit panel on Friday appeared open to reviving a Seychelles company's bid to enforce an arbitral award of more than $21 million against the Republic of Guinea, focusing oral arguments on whether the country "made" the underlying arbitration agreement even if it wasn't a party to it.

  • November 14, 2025

    Fla. Pharmacy To Pay $17M To Settle COVID False Claims Case

    A Tampa, Florida, pharmacy has agreed to pay over $17 million to settle allegations that it knowingly filed false Medicare claims for over-the-counter COVID-19 tests that hadn't gone out to recipients.

  • November 14, 2025

    Boston School Bus Fleet Manager Charged In Bribery Scheme

    Massachusetts federal prosecutors alleged Friday that a former fleet and facilities director for the company that provides school bus services to the city of Boston solicited more than $870,000 in bribes and kickbacks, along with a job for his son, from businesses seeking to do work at bus yards.

  • November 14, 2025

    DHS Aviation Contractor Will Pay $3.9M To Settle FCA Claims

    A Virginia company and its owners will pay $3.9 million to settle False Claims Act allegations that they overcharged the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for aviation contracts, federal prosecutors said Friday.

  • November 14, 2025

    La., Parishes Push To Keep Coastal Suits In State Court

    Louisiana and a pair of its coastal parishes have told the U.S. Supreme Court that the Fifth Circuit correctly concluded that their pollution lawsuits against Chevron and Exxon stemming from their World War II-era oil production belong in state court.

  • November 14, 2025

    Feds Say Ex-Police Union Prez Got Break With 30-Month Term

    A Massachusetts police union president who was convicted in a kickback scheme and sentenced to 2.5 years in prison should receive at least that much time when he's resentenced following a First Circuit decision largely affirming the verdict, prosecutors said, calling the original punishment a "windfall."

  • November 14, 2025

    Vaccine Suit Plaintiffs Say Disbarred Atty Is Doing Legal Work

    Fired city workers suing Ann Arbor for not granting them religious exemptions to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate have told a Michigan federal judge that the discovery master appointed in the case has offloaded the majority of her work to a disbarred attorney the plaintiffs say is improperly doing legal work as a paralegal.

  • November 14, 2025

    DC Circ. Urged To Block Trump Org. From IRS Leaker's Appeal

    President Donald Trump's private business organization should not be allowed to intervene in a former IRS contractor's challenge to his prison sentence for leaking Trump's and other wealthy people's tax returns, the contractor told the D.C. Circuit, saying the organization's participation would unfairly bias the court.

  • November 14, 2025

    Horizon BCBS To Pay $100M To End NJ AG's Overcharge Suit

    Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey has agreed to pay the state $100 million to resolve allegations that it fraudulently secured a multibillion-dollar contract to administer public employee health plans and then systematically overcharged taxpayers for years, Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin announced Friday.

  • November 13, 2025

    Alaska Co. Will Pay $3.5M To Settle DOJ Fake Survey Claims

    An Alaska company tapped to provide moving and storage services for U.S. defense personnel agreed to pay $3.5 million to resolve allegations that it submitted bogus customer surveys to give itself perfect ratings and nab more business, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

  • November 13, 2025

    Protest Over VA Flooring Deal Collapses

    The U.S. Government Accountability Office saw no problem with a Department of Veterans Affairs decision to award a flooring contract to a South Dakota company that didn't list a particular business code on its federal database registration, and denied a challenge to the deal.

  • November 13, 2025

    Mich. Schools Sue Over Privacy Waiver In Funding Bill

    A group of school districts and leaders have sued the state of Michigan in state and federal courts, asking judges to bar the state from enforcing a portion of a recently passed school funding legislative package that would require schools to give up privacy privileges in mass casualty events to receive mental health or safety dollars.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Playing Soccer Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Soccer has become a key contributor to how I approach my work, and the lessons I’ve learned on the pitch about leadership, adaptability, resilience and communication make me better at what I do every day in my legal career, says Whitney O’Byrne at MoFo.

  • How Trump Cybersecurity EO Narrows Biden-Era Standards

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    President Donald Trump recently signed Executive Order No. 14306, which significantly narrows the scope and ambition of a Biden executive order focused on raising federal cybersecurity standards among federal vendors, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.

  • DOJ-HHS Collab Crystallizes Focus On Health Enforcement

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    The recently announced partnership between the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to combat False Claims Act violations, following a multiyear trend of high-dollar DOJ recoveries, signals a long-term enforcement horizon with major implications for healthcare entities and whistleblowers, say attorneys at RJO.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Learning From Failure

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    While law school often focuses on the importance of precision, correctness and perfection, mistakes are inevitable in real-world practice — but failure is not the opposite of progress, and real talent comes from the ability to recover, rethink and reshape, says Brooke Pauley at Tucker Ellis.

  • Series

    Adapting To Private Practice: From ATF Director To BigLaw

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    As a two-time boomerang partner, returning to BigLaw after stints as a U.S. attorney and the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, people ask me how I know when to move on, but there’s no single answer — just clearly set your priorities, says Steven Dettelbach at BakerHostetler.

  • 4 In-Flux Employment Law Issues Banks Should Note

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    Attorneys at Ogletree provide a midyear update on employment law changes that could significantly affect banks and other financial service institutions — including federal diversity equity and inclusion updates, and new and developing state and local artificial intelligence laws.

  • New DOJ Penalty Policy Could Spell Trouble For Cos.

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    In light of the U.S. Department of Justice’s recently published guidance making victim relief a core condition of coordinated resolution crediting, companies facing parallel investigations must carefully calibrate their negotiation strategies to minimize the risk of duplicative penalties, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • A Look At Key 5th Circ. White Collar Rulings So Far This Year

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    In the first half of 2025, the Fifth Circuit has decided numerous cases of particular import to white collar practitioners, which collectively underscore the critical importance of meticulous recordbuilding, procedural compliance and strategic litigation choices at every stage of a case, says Joe Magliolo at Jackson Walker.

  • Contract Disputes Recap: Privity, Pressure, Procedural Traps

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    Three recent decisions from the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals, the Federal Circuit and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims offer fresh lessons for contractors navigating the procedural edge of Contract Disputes Act litigation, says Zachary Jacobson at Seyfarth.

  • Series

    Playing Baseball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing baseball in college, and now Wiffle ball in a local league, has taught me that teamwork, mental endurance and emotional intelligence are not only important to success in the sport, but also to success as a trial attorney, says Kevan Dorsey at Swift Currie.

  • Managing Risks As State AGs Seek To Fill Enforcement Gap

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    Given an unprecedented surge in state attorney general activity resulting from significant shifts in federal enforcement priorities, companies must consider tailored strategies for navigating the ever-evolving risk landscape, say attorneys at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Skillful Persuasion

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    In many ways, law school teaches us how to argue, but when the ultimate goal is to get your client what they want, being persuasive through preparation and humility is the more likely key to success, says Michael Friedland at Friedland Cianfrani.

  • FCA Working Group Reboot Signals EHR Compliance Risk

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    The revival of the False Claims Act working group is an aggressive expansion of enforcement efforts by the Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services targeted toward technology-enabled fraud involving electronic health records and other data, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

  • Litigation Inspiration: How To Respond After A Loss

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    Every litigator loses a case now and then, and the sting of that loss can become a medicine that strengthens or a poison that corrodes, depending on how the attorney responds, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • The Metamorphosis Of The Major Questions Doctrine

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    The so-called major questions doctrine arose as a counterweight to Chevron deference over the past few decades, but invocations of the doctrine have persisted in the year since Chevron was overturned, suggesting it still has a role to play in reining in agency overreach, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

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