Gen Digital: Higher Prices Built on False Disclosures

Gen Digital paid $55.1 million to satisfy a GSA pricing judgment over knowing false commercial-sales disclosures and discounts the government never received. The company previously operated under the Symantec and NortonLifeLock names. The court found that Symantec’s false pricing information caused the government to agree to higher prices and keep paying them. The whistleblower who brought the case administered the contract, the kind of job where a person can see both the commercial deal and the version presented to the government.

The Department of Justice announced the judgment payment on December 2, 2024. A trial judge had found the company liable under the False Claims Act.

What Is GSA Fraud?

In this case, GSA fraud meant knowingly misrepresenting commercial sales practices to obtain higher government prices, then failing to give the government discounts its contract required. The General Services Administration’s purchasing arrangement depended on an accurate account of how Symantec priced sales to commercial customers.

The court found that Symantec made false statements during contract negotiations in 2006 and early 2007. Those statements shaped the bargain. GSA accepted prices higher than it would have accepted with accurate information about the company’s actual commercial pricing.

That is the practical importance of commercial sales practices disclosures. The government negotiator sees the seller’s account of its business. The seller sees the transactions behind that account. When the company knowingly gives the buyer a false picture, the negotiated price can look justified while concealing an overcharge.

The buyer is bargaining from information the seller knows is wrong.

What Is a False Certification?

A false certification in the Symantec case was the company’s repeated assurance that its commercial-sales disclosures were current, accurate and complete when they were not. The court found that Symantec continued making those false certifications during contract performance through September 30, 2012.

The promise kept doing work after the contract was signed. GSA continued paying prices based on the false account. For an employee handling contract administration, the later certification could be as revealing as the original negotiation: it renewed the company’s assurance about information the employee might know was incomplete or wrong.

The judgment therefore reached both the false statements that helped establish the price and the continuing assurances that sustained it. Same pricing story, certified again.

The Commercial Discounts Behind the Government Price

Traditional Schedule pricing used actual commercial sales practices to negotiate a government price, then a designated customer or customer category to track the agreed pricing relationship. That distinction explains why the commercial sales file mattered so much in the Symantec case.

The traditional commercial-sales disclosure format sought actual discounts and concessions, including departures from a company’s written policies. A published price list could describe the starting price while leaving out concessions customers actually received. For someone in sales or contract administration, the useful comparison is between the disclosed policy and the deals the business really made. The format also called for changes to be disclosed before negotiations closed. A salesperson could recognize a concession missing from the disclosure even when the published discount policy itself had not changed.

GSA’s price was tied to an agreed commercial customer or customer category. That reference, called the basis-of-award customer, connects a particular commercial discount to the government’s contract.

An insider’s familiarity with customer categories, rebates and discount practices can explain what an invoice alone leaves unanswered. The invoice shows what the government was charged. The commercial transaction and the negotiated comparison help explain what it should have been charged.

The Price Reductions Clause Continued After Award

The court also found that Symantec continuously violated the Price Reductions Clause. As the Justice Department explained, the contract required Symantec to maintain GSA’s price position relative to the customer or category agreed upon during negotiations. The violations deprived the United States of discounts it was entitled to receive.

From Trial Findings to the Amended Judgment

The court found Symantec liable after a trial before a judge in February and March 2022, with written findings issued on January 19, 2023. The government had joined the contract administrator’s qui tam case and taken responsibility for pursuing it.

The January 16, 2024 amended judgment specified $16,121,696 in federal rebate damages and $36,872,000 in federal civil penalties. We see the cost of that pricing story in the penalties, which exceeded the rebate damages.

The Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch, Fraud Section, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia handled the litigation, with assistance from GSA’s Office of General Counsel and Office of Inspector General. The case began with the person administering the contract inside the company.

What Are the Indicators of Government Procurement Fraud?

In a pricing case like this one, the indicators are contradictions between commercial transactions, the pricing disclosures and certifications, and what the government was charged. Symantec’s case gives those comparisons a concrete setting: the court found inaccurate disclosures, continuing false certifications and missed contractual discounts.

A contract administrator may know which customer category the company agreed to use and what it certified during performance. A sales employee may know the discounts customers actually received. Those views can connect the commercial side of the business to the government contract in ways that a delivery or receiving record cannot.

The important billing evidence can sit across ordinary business records: the pricing disclosure, the negotiated comparison, commercial invoices and rebates, contract modifications, and government invoices. Together they show the representation, the transaction it described, the terms in force and the resulting charge.

We work with insiders to understand those connections. Someone who knows why a particular customer received a concession may be able to explain a pricing discrepancy that looks unremarkable on the face of a government invoice. That knowledge gives the documents their meaning.

Oracle Shows the Same Pricing Pattern

Oracle faced allegations about incomplete commercial-sales and discount disclosures in negotiating and administering its GSA software contract, followed by missed price reductions when commercial discounts improved. It settled those allegations in October 2011.

The useful parallel is the relationship between commercial concessions and the government’s price. In Oracle, the government alleged that the commercial account and later adjustments were incomplete. In Symantec, a court found knowing false disclosures and continuing violations. Both matters show why the sales history and contract administration file can carry a pricing case: the commercial deal helps explain the government bill.

How Much Money Can a Whistleblower Get From a Qui Tam Lawsuit?

A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers.

You Know the Deals Behind the Disclosure

If you administered a GSA contract or saw commercial discounts left out of the government’s pricing story, speak to one of our Whistleblower Experts about the discounts GSA never saw. We bring in government procurement whistleblower lawyers who understand commercial-pricing disputes and work with your knowledge of the transactions to build your strongest GSA pricing whistleblower case. We stay alongside you through the process.