OMB's Newly Proposed Acquisition Pilot Program Could Be a Game-Changer
Client Alert | 1 min read | 06.13.19
In late April, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent a letter to Congress, which contained a number of legislative proposals to streamline and improve the agility and efficiency of the federal acquisition process, one of which would establish an “Acquisition Modernization Test Board.” According to the letter, this Board would authorize the Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) “to exercise a waiver of one or more acquisition or procurement laws as part of a pilot program to evaluate how changing the statutory requirement(s) might facilitate more efficient achievement of the purpose underlying the law.” Importantly, this proposal would give OFPP enormous discretion and flexibility to pilot innovative and new approaches to streamlining and deregulating acquisitions. OMB seeks enactment of this and other proposals as part of Title 8 (the acquisition title) of the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, and, assuming that Congress approves this expanded authority for OFPP (either as part of an NDAA or otherwise), industry should take this opportunity to recommend innovative acquisition pilots.
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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
