A Department of Justice task force to fight collusion in government contracting remains a priority across changing administrations — an encouraging nod to whistleblowers.
As of the end of March 2025, the five-year-old Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF) has opened more than 175 investigations, achieved more than 75 guilty pleas and trial convictions, and topped $65 million in fines and restitution.
The PCSF represents one more way of chipping away at the estimated $233 billion to $521 billion the federal government loses annually to fraud. But the government often depends on help from whistleblowers — everyday people who spot this fraud and take noble action to report it.
“We are meeting an unmistakable demand for enforcement that focuses on criminal schemes targeting government procurement,” Daniel Glad, strike force director, said at the fifth anniversary event in November 2024. “Whether measured by the number of people trained or investigations opened, or the amount of taxpayer funds at stake in our convictions, the PCSF is meeting a clear need.”
The focus has expanded. In January 2025, four defendants pleaded guilty related to schemes to rig bids, defraud the government, and pay and receive bribes — the first guilty pleas, the DOJ said, in its ongoing investigation into IT manufacturers, distributors and resellers.
The DOJ website offers examples of the types of collusion it has prioritized in this enforcement effort:
- Bid rigging: When multiple firms align bidding to make sure a designated firm wins.
- Price fixing: When competing sellers agree on certain prices to charge, perhaps by hiking prices by a set amount or by agreeing not to sell below a certain threshold.
- Customer or market allocation: Companies agree on a plan to divide customers, perhaps by geography, in order to decrease competition.
The PCSF is actively requesting tips on these types of activities, as well as training thousands of officials on how to spot collusion in government contracting.
Collusion against the government also violates the False Claims Act, meaning whistleblowers are eligible for protections and, may use its powerful qui tam provision to file a lawsuit in the name of the government, and be eligible for an award of between 15-30 percent of any successful recovery from the lawsuit.
In addition to the False Claims Act, which is the government’s most effective fraud fighting tool, the federal government has a range of whistleblower programs intended to root out fraud in everything from complex financial transactions and taxes to vehicle safety; it relies on whistleblowers to help root out and remedy these problems.
If you are an insider with unique information about activity that involves financial wrongdoing, threatens public safety, skirts laws or defrauds the U.S. government, contact Keller Grover for a free and confidential consultation. Our experienced whistleblower attorneys can answer questions and work with you to develop prudent next steps. In addition to providing a public service, whistleblowers who help expose fraud using established whistleblower programs may be eligible for an award.