Skip to content
  • The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced a $21.5 million settlement with Deloitte LLP and four affiliated entities (collectively, Deloitte), marking the second False Claims Act (FCA) settlement under the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative launched in May 2025. 
  • The settlement resolves allegations that Deloitte violated the FCA by falsely certifying compliance with anti-discrimination requirements in its federal contracts while engaging in challenged race- and sex-based employment practices and charging costs relating to these practices to federal government contracts. 
  • This case follows the $17 million IBM settlement announced in April 2026 and confirms that DOJ’s enforcement in this area remains active.

The discriminatory practices alleged were as follows:

  • “Taking race or sex into account when making hiring, promotion, and staffing decisions to achieve progress towards non-public race and sex-based workforce composition goals for business units.”
  • Evaluating senior personnel “in part, based on their contributions to helping Deloitte achieve its workforce composition goals,” including a “two-year period” during which certain senior employees’ compensation could be impacted based on whether demographic goals were met.
  • “Offering certain training, mentoring and leadership development programs, educational opportunities or resources … on the basis of race or sex.”

NLRB GENERAL COUNSEL RELEASES ROADMAP FOR OVERTURNING LABOR PRECEDENTS

  • National Labor Relations (NLRB or Board) General Counsel, Crystal Carey, has issued Memorandum GC 26-04, providing the clearest signal yet of the substantive changes she intends to pursue with the Board. She identified more than a dozen Biden-era precedents that her office has either asked the Board to reconsider or that she intends to challenge when an appropriate case arises. This memo is a significant development and offers a concrete preview of Carey’s plan to return to sounder labor policy.
  • Captive Audience Meetings. Carey is advocating to reverse Amazon.com Services LLC, 373 NLRB No. 136 (2024), which broke with more than 75 years of precedent by holding that it violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act) to hold mandatory meetings where employers express their views on unionization. Carey has filed a motion encouraging the Board to restore the longstanding Babcock & Wilcox standard which, since 1948, had permitted employers to require employee attendance at such meetings during paid work time. If the Board reverses Amazon, employers will once again have a critical tool for communicating directly with their workforce during organizing campaigns.
  • Work Rules Under Stericycle. Carey is advocating to overturn Stericycle, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 113 (2023), which adopted a standard under which facially neutral workplace rules could be found presumptively unlawful if they had a “reasonable tendency” to chill employees from exercising NLRA rights. In practice, Stericycle called into question routine handbook policies—civility rules, attendance rules, confidentiality provisions, social media policies—and applied an analysis with unpredictable and inconsistent outcomes. Carey’s position signals a return to a more employer-friendly framework that focuses on whether rules explicitly restrict protected activity, rather than speculating about potential chilling effects. (Separately, Carey has instructed regional directors to de-prioritize charges that are based purely on generalized alleged violations of Stericycle, and to focus on more clear-cut violations where an adverse action actually occurred.)
  • Cemex Bargaining Orders. Carey has announced her intent to challenge Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, 372 NLRB No. 130 (2023), which fundamentally altered the union recognition process. Under Cemex, if an employer commits an unfair labor practice that arguably might affect the results of the election, the Board can impose a bargaining order, even before an election actually occurs. Carey described Cemex as “contrary to Supreme Court precedent and sound labor policy” and intends to press for a return to the traditional Gissel/Linden Lumber framework, which afforded greater procedural protections and preserved employees’ right to vote.
  • Severance Agreements and Employer Speech. Carey has also taken aim at McLaren Macomb, 372 NLRB No. 58 (2023), which restricted employers’ ability to include standard non-disparagement and confidentiality provisions in severance agreements, and Siren Retail Corp. d/b/a Starbucks, 373 NLRB No. 135 (2024), which narrowed the permissible scope of employer predictions about the effects of unionization. Carey is advocating to return to the established standard in Tri-Cast, Inc., which gave employers broader latitude to communicate their views about potential impacts of union representation without running afoul of the Act.

What Does This Mean for Employers?

  • Now that the Board has a 3-1 Republican majority, change is certainly on the horizon. From a business standpoint, it is worth analyzing how these anticipated changes may affect operations and employee relations. That said, the cases that General Counsel Carey has called out in the memo remain in effect, despite her advocacy. There is no guarantee that the Board will agree with Carey’s interpretations of the law. There is also no guarantee that the Board, even if it reverses a certain Biden-era decision, will revert back to the prior standard.
  • Employers should follow these developments closely and make strategic decisions about handling live or pending issues that involve the caselaw that Carey has targeted. Employers with pending NLRB charges or active organizing campaigns, in particular, should evaluate whether any of these anticipated shifts present opportunities to preserve favorable arguments on the record.
  • While the General Counsel’s direction is clear, the pace of change will be case-by-case—and employers who position themselves strategically now will be best prepared to benefit as the law evolves.

If you are not a retainer client, contact us to learn about our services by calling 423-764-4127 or click here.