The Trump administration is using the False Claims Act to investigate the diversity initiatives of major companies, including Alphabet (<a>GOOGL
) (<a>GOOG) (GOOG, GOOGL) and Verizon (<a>VZ
), Lydia Wheeler of Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the investigations. The administration is probing companies in industries ranging from automotive and pharmaceuticals to defense and utilities, people familiar with matter told the paper. The Justice Department believes that holding a federal contract while considering diversity when hiring is fraud against the government that entitles it to recoup potentially millions of dollars, according to the Journal.
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The False Claims Act (FCA), a 162-year-old statute originally designed to combat fraud by defense contractors during the American Civil War. The Department of Justice has launched an expansive inv...