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DUPLICATE FUNDING HAS BECOME A PROBLEM 



Duplicate funding of similar proposals submitted to more than 

 one agency has become a problem. Agency officials informed us that 

 they are investigating some companies that allegedly received 

 duplicate funding by multiple federal agencies for substantially 

 identical proposals. A few cases are under review by the 

 Department of Justice for possible criminal and civil prosecution. 

 In one case, the Department of Justice has filed an action for 

 trebled damages of $4.2 million under the False Claims Act. The 

 complaint alleges that the SBIR company had fraudulently obtained 

 approximately $1.4 million in duplicate funding from NSF, NASA, and 

 various DOD agencies. The complaint also alleges that the company 

 "recycled" 11 research ideas 40 times in duplicate submissions. 



In further work on this problem during 1994, agency officials 

 found evidence of other companies receiving duplicate funding. 

 According to agency officials, a few companies received funding for 

 the same proposals twice, three times, and even five times before 

 agencies became aware of the duplication. In these cases, the 

 companies also submitted equivalent reports at the end of their 

 Phase I work without informing agencies of the duplicative 

 research . 



Several factors are contributing to the problem of duplicate 

 funding. First, companies proposing projects have not identified 

 identical proposals they have made to other agencies, thereby 

 fraudulently evading the certification procedure that requires them 

 to provide such information. SBA's 1993 policy directive and 

 individual SBIR agencies require proposers to indicate the name and 

 address of the agencies to which duplicate or similar proposals 

 were made and to identify by subject the projects for which the 

 proposal was submitted and the dates submitted. 



