As we are finally (mostly) caught up from the holidays—including partner Julie Bracker’s faculty participation at the False Claims Act “Mock Trial” Institute for the American Bar Association—we are pleased to announce a series of settlements that occurred over the last few months!
Hopefully, you saw our previous blog announcing a $13.625 million settlement against a healthcare provider in Texas. But that isn’t our only notable settlement as we closed out 2025 and kicked off 2026.
Our Cybersecurity Clients Score a False Claims Act Win
Here in Atlanta, the Northern District of Georgia, the first intervened and (somewhat) litigated cyberfraud case against Georgia Tech Research Corporation came to an end via settlement for $875,000. This case made the news when the government intervened in the case and filed its Complaint, as well as over the allegations it made in response to GTRC’s Motion To Dismiss.
Our clients were two senior cybersecurity employees at the Georgia Institute of Technology (“Georgia Tech”) who alleged that its Astrolavus Lab did not meet NIST 800-171 requirements, to which it had been certifying compliance. As our complaint explained, the pair discovered this issue when attempting to update a security system, which required that a firewall be dropped—only to be told that there was no firewall at all on the system!
After its investigation, the United States entered the case and further alleged that in December 2020, Georgia Tech and GTRC submitted a false cybersecurity assessment score to DoD for the Georgia Tech campus by using a summary score that was based on its recommendations, rather than the actual, as-implemented numbers for its individual labs. The U.S. Complaint in Intervention alleged that Georgia Tech did not actually have a campus-wide IT system, and quoted one of the interviewees from its investigation as having measured the score of a “fictitious” lab that had implemented all of the cybersecurity suggestions.
Rather than rule on the motion to dismiss, the court instead ordered mediation. The parties ultimately reached the resolution of just shy of $900,000 over the course of several months of negotiations. Cybersecurity fraud is still a new and burgeoning area of False Claims Act litigation, and the Government is still exploring how to calculate damages in cases where a contractor fails to adequately protect government data, but no actual breach has yet occurred, and so no actual damages have yet been incurred.
This case was handled by Jake Shields at “Main Justice” in Washington, D.C., who was later replaced by Joanna Persio, and by Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Nugent in the Northern District of Georgia.
Five More PPP Settlements Recovering an Additional $4.5 Million
Staying in Atlanta, our client Blockquote added a Paycheck Protection Program settlement of almost $2 million plus interest to its ledger. This was another “foreign affiliation” case, where the local company was ineligible for PPP funds because it was a subsidiary of a much larger foreign company and so did not qualify as a small business.
This matter was jointly handled by two offices—Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony DeCinque here in the Northern District of Georgia, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Whitney Schnurr in the Western District of Michigan.
Our PPP data mining friends at Sidesolve had four more intervened settlements as well! First, the Northern District of Texas settled a “domestic affiliation” case for $1.685 million, plus interest, another “ability to pay” settlement. Congratulations to Assistant U.S. Attorney Najib Gazi for resolving this matter.
Second, the District of Columbia settled yet another think tank case, also based on ability to pay, for $475,000 plus interest. The government press release also mentions the $2.1 million settlement that we previously announced. Chalk these up as two more wins for Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Tepe.
Third, the Western District of Washington settled with a cannabis dispensary for about $235,000, representing two times the amount of its loan forgiveness and processing costs. Congrats to Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Waldrop, who has been instrumental in several of our PPP settlements in that district.
Fourth is another cannabis-related settlement, this time coming from the Northern District of California. The case settled for $135,000 after the company closed its doors and sold its assets to pay what it could to resolve the case. We are grateful to Assistant U.S. Attorney Audrey Pak for seeing this one through, notwithstanding the defendant’s financial difficulties.
2025 (and the first week of 2026) was not only one of our most successful years in terms of total number of wins and settlements, but it was also far and away our busiest year! We’ll be right back at it in the new year! Happy 2026 everybody, from your friends at Bracker & Marcus!