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November 25, 2020 By cs

Employee of government contractor pleads guilty to fraud and kickback charges

An employee of a government contractor had pled guilty to his involvement in a scheme to overbill a contract administered by the General Services Administration (GSA) by approximately $1.25 million, and solicit and receive kickbacks from a subcontractor in exchange for providing that subcontractor valuable contract modifications.

Elmer Baker of Gulf Breeze, Florida, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the anti-kickback statute and four counts of wire fraud in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Sentencing will be scheduled for a later date.

According to admissions made in connection with the plea agreement:

Baker served as the project manager for his company on the contract administered by the GSA.
After his company awarded a subcontract to a construction company for work on the facility, Baker began receiving kickbacks in the form of meals, golf sessions, vacations, and other things of value.
In or around 2015, Baker began demanding monetary kickbacks that were valued at 10 percent of the amount of each of the subcontract modifications that he awarded the subcontractor.
Baker sent the subcontractor fake invoices to make it appear as though the payments he was receiving were for legitimate work, and he set up a shell company to receive the payments.
Additionally, Baker took the subcontract estimates provided to him and illegally inflated them in his requests to the GSA.
Over the course of several subcontract modifications, Baker defrauded the GSA out of approximately $1.25 million.

Prosecution of his case was handled by the Justice Department’s Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, the nation’s leading prosecuting authority on government procurement fraud and corruption matters.

The GSA Office of Inspector General, FBI’s Washington Field Office, and the State Department Office of Inspector General were in charge of investigating this case.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/employee-government-contractor-pleads-guilty-fraud-and-kickback-charges

November 24, 2020 By cs

DoD contractors: Will you be ready for CMMC on Nov. 30?

Responding to fundamental concerns about the cybersecurity of its private sector supply chain, the Department of Defense (DoD) will begin requiring at the end of this month all of its contractors to comply with a complex and demanding new cybersecurity framework.

Starting on November 30, 2020, contractors working for the DoD will need to comply with the long-anticipated Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). This mandatory requirement will be a go/no-go criterion for eligibility for many DoD contracts.

Issued on September 29, 2020 the interim rule, amends the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to establish the DoD Assessment Methodology for contractor cybersecurity certification and implement the CMMC program.

What is the DoD Assessment Methodology?

The DoD Assessment Methodology requirement was developed to address perceived flaws in the self-assessment process. Currently, under DFARS clause 252.204-7012, contractors must self-certify their compliance with the cybersecurity requirements of NIST SP 800-171 to “covered contractor information systems,” which are generally those that store, process, generate, transmit or access “covered defense information.” Through the interim rule, the DoD Assessment Methodology rates contractor cybersecurity levels as Basic, Medium or High based on the contractor’s implementation of the 110 controls identified under the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication (SP) 800-171.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/security/1003266/defense-department-contractors-will-you-be-ready-for-cmmc-on-november-30

November 23, 2020 By cs

ASBCA revisits email “signature” and finds typed name meets the test

In a departure from its prior precedent, the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (ASBCA) recently held in Kamaludin Slyman CSC, ASBCA Nos. 62006, 62007, 62008, that a typed name at the end of an email satisfies the certification requirement under the Contract Dispute Act (CDA), so long as it is discrete, verifiable, and conveys an intent to authenticate.

The contractor at issue submitted a $155,500 demand for payment to the Government in March 2013, thus, triggering the CDA’s certification requirement under FAR 52.233-1. The demand itself did not contain a certification, but the contractor sent a follow-up email just prior to the six-year statute of limitations, stating:

Hey Sir,

For contract numbers -12-C-0089, -12-C-0131, -11-C-0322, and the claims submitted in respect to them on March 16, 2013, I certify that the claim is made in good faith; that the supporting data are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief; that the amount requested accurately reflects the contract adjustment for which the contractor believes the Government is liable; and that I am duly authorized to certify the claim on behalf of the contractor.

Sincerely,

Kamaludin Slyman

Three days after sending this email, the contractor submitted an appeal to the ASBCA pursuant to a “deemed denial” and the Government moved to dismiss asserting that the contractor had failed to sign its certification and, thus, failed to certify its claim. The Board noted that the Government did not argue in its motion that the appeal was premature, as the requisite 60 days had not passed between the certification and the purported deemed denial. However, because at the time of its decision more than 60 days had elapsed since the certification, the ASBCA saw “no useful purpose in dismissing the appeal as premature and requiring appellant to refile.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/government-contracts-procurement-ppp/1003364/asbca-revisits-email-signature-and-finds-typed-name-meets-the-test

November 20, 2020 By cs

What lessons can public and private sector organizations share on cybersecurity?

In the midst of receiving the results of the 2020 presidential election, we’re faced with a potential administration change.

As such, we’re entering a period of transition that raises questions about the best way to protect our nation’s digital infrastructure from nefarious actors wishing to cause harm to our systems.

While comparing the difference between how the private sector operates versus the public sector, the past few years have brought into sharp focus the benefits and drawbacks of how each approach cybersecurity. And looking forward, we see a more intertwined fate of both, as sophisticated and brazen cyberattacks deploy similar TTPs (techniques, tactics and procedures).

After all, phishing and ransomware campaigns don’t care whether you have a .com, .gov or .org email address, and non-state eCrime actors are taking advantage of remote working conditions whether you work for a corporation, city government or a federal agency.

In fact, since March 2020, CrowdStrike has observed a 330% increase from cyber threat actors deploying malicious files using COVID themes. And in the six months from January to June, CrowdStrike’s threat hunting team, OverWatch, observed more hands-on-keyboard intrusions than were seen throughout all of 2019.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fedscoop.com/transition-coming-lessons-can-public-private-sector-organizations-share-cybersecurity/

November 19, 2020 By cs

What a Biden administration will mean for contractors

For federal contractors, much will change under a Biden administration.

Some changes will return the familiar. Some wags are already calling the next presidency a third Obama term. That may or may not be accurate, much less fair to Biden.

One thing is certain, the government won’t retreat one dollar from its $500 billion-a-year contracting appetite. Beyond that, the pH of the procurement waters will change.

The agency to watch, if you’re a contractor, and by extension a contracting officer, is the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. This Labor Department unit is the source of many policies that apply to contractors, starting with ensuring contractors follow what used to be called employment standards. Mainly that contractors don’t, in their own employment practices, violate equal opportunity laws and regulations.

Administrations use it as one of the levers of power the general public doesn’t see, unlike, say, the Environmental Protection Agency or Justice Department. Its policies apply to contracts and contractors.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tom-temin-commentary/2020/11/what-a-biden-administration-will-mean-for-contractors/