Law360 — The U.S. Supreme Court vacated a Fourth Circuit decision holding Triple Canopy Inc. liable for unqualified guards hired at a U.S. base in Iraq, ordering the court Monday to consider the case anew in light of this month’s new standard for evaluating False Claims Act liability from regulatory violations.

In a summary disposition, the high court granted Triple Canopy’s petition challenging the Fourth Circuit decision and remanded the case back to the lower appeals court for review in light of its unanimous decision in Universal Health Services v. Escobar. That decision held that corporations can face FCA liability if they bill Uncle Sam while out of compliance with regulations that aren’t explicit conditions of payment.

Published by: RAND Corporation — From one standpoint, the employment of private security contractors can provide the United States with access to capabilities that would otherwise be unavailable or “would [either] take an inordinate amount of time to develop internally, or . . . be prohibitively expensive to develop” (Wynn, 2004, p. 4).

Proponents of this “valuable skills” argument claim that although the vast majority of private security contractors provide services that the military itself is designed to perform, a small segment of this group of contractors might be able to off er additional skills.

Days after losing more than a dozen security contractors to a suicide attack in Kabul, Nepal has banned its citizens from working in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, Reuters reported on Saturday.

The news agency said the decision was taken after a parliamentary panel asked the government to swoop on traffickers who send thousands of migrants every year to conflict zones, where they faced the risk of exploitation.

Erik Prince, former CEO of private security firm Blackwater who served as a Navy SEAL and CIA asset, told Breitbart News Sunday’s Stephen K. Bannon that to win the war against radical Islamic terrorism, the United States must deny entry to people who pose a threat to America’s Christian way of life.

He said the United States could defeat the jihadi enemy by denying them sanctuary, money, and access to American territory.

“We have no obligation as a country to allow people in that are an inherent threat or could be an inherent threat to our way of life — to our Western Judeo-Christian civilization,” declared Prince, now the managing director of the private equity firm Frontier Resource Group. “It is open to all — freedom of religion, but not if they’re coming here to attack us.”

Behind the president’s directive to ‘accelerate’ the counter-ISIS campaign came a surge in the number of contractors assisting in the campaign against ISIS.

The number of private contractors working for the U.S. Defense Department in Iraq grew eight-fold over the past year, a rate that far outpaces the growing number of American troops training and advising Iraqi soldiers battling Islamic State militants.

BY: RUTA NIMKAR, Private military and security companies (PMSCs) have earned a place in the spotlight recently due primarily to charges of human rights abuses in Iraq. However, the industry has been growing rapidly for over two decades, and has had significant impact on conflicts in Sierra Leone, Bosnia, and Papua New Guinea, among others. This article examines the difference between modern military companies and mercenaries. It then outlines the factors that gave rise to the PMSC industry and analyzes the threats and opportunities associated with PMSC presence. Four case studies are presented and factors associated with positive PMSC intervention are identified. The current state of policy regarding private militaries is reviewed, and the paper closes with suggestions on future policy directions.

Private military contractors in Iraq skyrocketed in number by eight times over the period of January 2015 to January 2016, according to a new Pentagon report to Congress. There were just 250 contractors in Iraq in January 2015, a number that has surged to 2,028. Exactly 70 percent are American nationals, 20 percent are from other countries and 10 percent are local Iraqis.

Midway through 2015, the Pentagon put out numerous offers to quickly pull in more contractors. One of the offers came from the Army in March 2015 and called for advisors to assist the Iraqi Ministry of Defense with “designing, implementing, and sustaining systems that increase its institutional capabilities.”

Matthew Cole, a reporter at The Intercept, discusses the investigation that exposed former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and his plan to create his own private air force to use in parts of Africa. In “Echo Papa Exposed: Inside Erik Prince’s Treacherous Drive to Build a Private Airforce,” he and co-author Jeremy Scahill reveal how Prince planned to modify American-made Thrush 510G crop dusters to be used in paramilitary operations in South Sudan and elsewhere. 

According to USAID — The United States announced nearly $139 million in humanitarian assistance in response to the Yemen crisis.

The contribution will help meet the urgent humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable people in the Middle East's poorest and most food insecure country. Since the beginning of the current conflict in March 2015, approximately 2.7 million Yemenis have been displaced and over 20 million Yemenis are in need of humanitarian protection and assistance. The USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) estimates that at least 6 million people in Yemen are currently in need of life-saving food assistance.   

The work of private military and security contractors is extremely controversial from the point of view of international law and of practice. Sometimes there are doubts as to whether some of their activities should be considered legal activities or illegal mercenarism. Like any other entities using force, they can violate human rights as well as international humanitarian law. They provide their services to, among others, states and intergovernmental organisations, including the UN.

According to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), it is providing nearly $68 million for emergency food assistance, to reach approximately 2.5 million Sudanese as well as refugees from South Sudan and other neighboring states. This assistance will be delivered through the World Food Program, which will help address the complex emergency arising from conflict, natural disasters and widespread displacement in Sudan, including those severely affected by the impacts of El Niño. This contribution brings total U.S. humanitarian assistance for Sudan to nearly $351 million since FY 2015.

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, DynCorp International, LLC, of Fort Worth, Texas, protests the award of a contract to URS Federal Services, Inc., under request for proposals (RFP) No. W58RGZ-14-R-0270, which was issued by the Department of the Army, Army Contracting Command, Redstone, for aviation field maintenance support services. DynCorp challenges the Army's evaluation of the offerors' technical proposals, the protester's past performance, and URS's price/cost proposal, and also argues that the best value tradeoff and source selection was unreasonable.

In a major new exposé, The Intercept has revealed that the Justice Department is investigating Blackwater founder Erik Prince for possible money laundering, ties to Chinese intelligence, and attempts to broker military services to foreign governments. Prince is currently the chairman of Frontier Services Group, an aviation and logistics firm specializing in shipping in Africa. But documents obtained by The Intercept show that Prince has also set up shell companies to offer paramilitary services to at least a half-dozen African nations, including Libya.

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