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Soon after Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and
Economic Security Act ( CARES Act ) in March 2020, the
Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) moved
quickly to address potential COVID-19 related fraud. One area of
early focus was the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a program
under the CARES Act that provides loans to small businesses to help
pay employees. The Fraud Section set up a team devoted to PPP fraud
and, within two months of the passage of the CARES Act, had charged
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Soon after Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”) in March 2020, the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) moved quickly to address potential COVID-19 related fraud. One area of early focus was the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a program under the CARES Act that provides loans to small businesses to help pay employees. The Fraud Section set up a team devoted to PPP fraud and, within two months of the passage of the CARES Act, had charged several individuals. Our client alert from May 2020 detailed the very first wave of PPP-related charges and offered several predictions for how such cases would unfold.[1] This update reviews recent developments in DOJ enforcement and provides new predictions for the future of COVID-19 relief fraud enforcement. In short, DOJ enforcement of PPP fraud remains in its early stages, still focused more on brazen acts of f
Thursday, February 4, 2021
The long-anticipated wave of civil enforcement actions involving participants in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has begun.
On 12 January 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the first civil settlement resolving fraud allegations against SlideBelts, Inc. (SlideBelts), a California e-retailer and manufacturer of fashion accessories, and its President and CEO, Brigham Taylor.
1 As we have discussed in prior alerts,
2 aggressive criminal and civil enforcement activity targeting PPP borrowers was a foregone conclusion given the minimal safeguards initially imposed by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), the speed with which lenders disbursed loan proceeds, and reports indicating that more than US$4 billion in PPP funds are likely attributable to fraud.