This month, and with great fanfare, the U.S. Department of
Justice (DOJ) announced its creation of a
Procurement Collusion Strike Force. We know what you're
thinking, and no – this Strike Force will not be starring in
the next Avengers movie. Rather, DOJ created the Strike Force to
combat antitrust crimes in Federal procurement.
The concept of a Strike Force is not novel. In October 2006, DOJ
announced the formation of a then-new National Procurement Fraud
Task Force within its Criminal Division, an effort that claimed
credit for a large number of investigations and prosecutions in the
ensuing years. The Central District of California established its
own Procurement Fraud Task Force in 1991, focusing on alleged fraud
in the defense industry. And there have been others. The idea
behind all of them is to marshal federal enforcement resources from
various agencies to focus on a single problem. In this case, the
perceived problem is collusion among government contractors
