Under a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, contractors may face False Claims Act liability for the submission of false estimates, including fraudulent underbidding. In United States ex rel. Hooper v. Lockheed Martin Corporation, No. 11-55278 (9th Cir. Aug. 2, 2012) [pdf], the Ninth Circuit joined the First and Fourth Circuits in holding that “false estimates, defined to include fraudulent underbidding in which the bid is not what the defendant actually intends to charge, can be a source of liability under the FCA.”

In this case, a former Lockheed Martin employee alleged that the company intentionally underbid its proposal for the Air Force’s Range Standardization and Automation IIA (“RSA IIA”) program. Lockheed was awarded the RSA IIA contract in 1995, and since then it has been paid more than $900 million on a cost-reimbursement plus award fee basis. Hooper, the qui tam relator and former Lockheed employee, alleged that the employees preparing Lockheed’s RSA IIA bid were told to “lower their estimates without regard to actual costs.”