This Can’t be Ethical or Moral, but is it Legal?

If you’ve been following this blog you by now know that, when stripped to its core, our dispute with the DOD can be summarized as:

1. Save a token payment, in 2004 the Government was NOT paying Quimba for services rendered on the contract central to this dispute – until such time that Quimba’s indirect rates and accounting system were approved by Defense Corporation Audit Agency (DCAA.)
2. While working to create an accounting system acceptable to the Government, Quimba founders deferred salary and continued to perform on the contract.
3. The Government finally approved Quimba’s accounting system in 2005 after the contract had been completed and delivered.
4. Quimba billed for the past-due amounts, received payment and began normal salary payments to its founders.
5. The Government is now attempting to exploit an accounting technicality, created when the calendar rolled from December 31, 2004, to January 1, 2005, to substantially reduce the value of this contract, by as much as 48%, when the Government has received full value from Quimba’s effort and has never questioned the number of hours spent on the project by Quimba staff.

You may also remember that our ACO, Mr. Craig Studley, made an error in determining how much the Government had paid to Quimba (the Token Payment, referenced above) and as the result levied a $91K+ debt on Quimba, as discussed in an earlier post. You may also recall that, as we detailed in this post, we provided the proof of ACO’s error to Srikanti Schaffner, the DCMA attorney representing the Government, who asked for a 60 day stay to investigate but decided to let the case proceed.

Attorney Schaffner’s decision baffled us since we thought attorneys, as Officers of the Court, have a duty to stop prosecuting a case when they know, for a fact, that their case has significant material defects. Further, in our humble opinion, ACO Studley’s error is not only relevant, but also is the “main pin” for the whole case – at least to us.

So we wrote a letter to Honorable Judge Mark N. Stempler, the Acting Chairman of ASBCA, requesting he review attorney Schaffner’s conduct. You can download a copy of the letter here.

What do you think? Are we right to think this way? Or are we just a bunch of cry babies?

Stay tuned. I’ll update you with Judge Stempler’s response shortly.

People in this post:
Bob Dourandish – bob@quimba.com
Srikanti Schaffner, Esq. – Srikanti.Schaffner@dcma.mil
Craig Studley – Craig.Studley@dcma.mil
The Honorable Judge Mark N. Stempler – No email on file.