The Procurement Integrity Act , business and finance homework help

STUDENT 1: Kaitlin

The Procurement Integrity Act prohibits the release of source selection and contractor bid or proposal information. “The procurement integrity act (41USC423) prohibits personnel “participating personally and substantially” in a federal agency procurement from: soliciting or accepting jobs or business opportunities from, asking for or receiving things of value ($10 or more) from, disclosing bidder proposal information to, disclosing source selection information which has not already been made public to competing contractors. (“gathering information about commercial products and services,” 1997, p. 04)” The Procurement Integrity Act is important to the acquisition process because it helps keeping deciding on who gets a job to be based solely on the proposals. This keep companies from bribing the contracting employee to pick their proposal. There are many different types of procurement fraud. A common one is an employee (or employees) conspires with an outside supplier to defraud the employer in a variety of ways; usually the employee receives some type of kick back, remuneration, bribe, gifts, or other benefits in exchange for their assistance. Also, when an employee (or employees working together) establishes a dummy company or supplier account in the company’s systems and then works to steal from the employer via fraudulent contracts, invoices, and/or payments. You could also give an unfair advantage to an individual supplier when you tell them information that is not supposed to be disclosed to the companies and only that one company finds out. Since most fraud in procurement is done with fake companies you would need aneffective system will make it easy to spot the rot before the whole system is rotten. Buyers need to verify physically important issues about a supplier.

References

gathering information about commercial products and services. (1997). Market Research, 01-64. Retrieved from https://www.acquisition.gov/seven_steps/library/DO…

STUDENT 2: Robert

As found on the department of justice website, “the Procurement Integrity Act prohibits the release of source selection and contractor bid or proposal information. Also, a former employee who served in certain positions on a procurement action or contract in excess of $10 million is barred for one year from receiving compensation as an employee or consultant from that contractor” (DoJ, 2017). With the Procurement Integrity Act, the contractors’ information is kept private so that he doesn’t get out bid. If a bigger company wants the bid more he will not know how much any other contractor is bidding. This keeps the pricing fair. Also if a former employee has critical information about a program, that employee has to wait one year so that way no one can just flip sides and carry critical information with them. This measure also keeps things fair and protects the customer.

Procurement fraud happens when an employer conspires to steal, illegally make money, or benefit from their position or knowledge this can be cost/labor mischarging, defective pricing, defective parts, price fixing and bid rigging, and product substitution (Bartolini, 2012). There are many remedies available and a process set in place to deal with fraud. There is also the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act of 1986 which is where fraud cased are considered. Fraud cases go to trial and the appropriate remedies will be given to the case.

References

Department of Justice, (2017). Procurement Integrity Act, Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/jmd/procurement-integrity

Bartolini, A., (2012). Examples of procurement fraud. CPO Rising Retrieved from http://cporising.com/2012/08/03/eamples-of-procurement-fraud/

Airforce Instruction 51-1101. Retrieved from http://www.safgc.hq.af.mil/Portals/80/documents/AFD-160722-010.pdf?ver=2016-08-05-110049-517

STUDENT 3: Mike

Hello Class,

The Procurement Integrity Act makes it unlawful to share information on contractor bids, source selections, or proposal information. This is very important to the acquisition process as it allows fair contract proposals for all parties involved. The act also helps mitigate potential fraud and insider trader that has caused issues in the past. This act would definitely help if it was in-acted in South Korea’s acquisition process. Most of the contracts are given through insider connections and through kickbacks throughout the government. Fraud is always a topic of discussion whenever contracts for government construction are on the table for bids.

Some of the most common types of procurement fraud are kickbacks (bribes), conflicts of interest, over inflated invoices, and leaking of bid information to name a few. Kickbacks are bribes of either large sums of money or gifts to persuade companies to negotiate and award contracts to that contracting company. Conflict of interest is when the contactors or employers have an undisclosed interest in the procurement of the contract. This can involve personal relationships as well as bribes. Inflated invoices are when quotes to the employer are not the actual price that the contract costs. Instead it is raised and sometimes doubled to gain more money from the employer. Then we also have leaking of bid information where someone on the inside leaks information to a competitor in order for them to win the contract this also ties in conflicts of interest.