DOJ Continues DEI False Claims Act Enforcement With $25 Million Accenture Settlement

Key Takeaways

• DOJ has announced a $25 million FCA settlement with Accenture, the third major DEI-related FCA resolution involving a federal contractor this year, following settlements with IBM and Deloitte.
• DOJ’s allegations go beyond general diversity goals. The government alleged that Accenture Federal Services used race or sex in hiring and promotion decisions and restricted access to certain training, mentoring, leadership development, and educational opportunities based on protected characteristics.
• The settlement further demonstrates that contractors should review not only hiring and promotion practices, but also employee development programs, demographic goals, internal reporting, and eligibility criteria for mentorship and leadership programs.
• Like the recent Deloitte settlement, DOJ’s claims against Accenture rely on longstanding federal anti-discrimination requirements, rather than solely on the Trump administration’s newer DEI-related contracting requirements.

On September 14, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Accenture Federal Services (AFS), Accenture plc, and Accenture LLP (collectively, Accenture or AFS) agreed to pay $25 million to resolve allegations that AFS violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by falsely certifying compliance with anti-discrimination requirements in its federal contracts while engaging in employment practices that allegedly discriminated based on race or sex. Of the $25 million settlement, approximately $11.6 million constitutes restitution, and Accenture denies that it engaged in the alleged conduct.

The settlement follows DOJ’s $21.5 million resolution with Deloitte in August and an approximately $17 million settlement with IBM in April involving similar allegations. Together, the three resolutions total more than $63 million and provide increasingly concrete examples of the types of employment practices DOJ may view as creating FCA exposure for government contractors.

DOJ’s Allegations Against Accenture

According to the settlement agreement, AFS was required to comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as incorporated into its federal contracts, as well as the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), including FAR 52.222-26, Equal Opportunity. That clause, which is no longer in effect after the revocation of the Johnson-era Executive Order 11246 by President Trump’s January 21, 2025 Executive Order 14173, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” required covered contractors to refrain from discrimination based on protected characteristics and to ensure that applicants are employed and employees are treated during employment without regard to those characteristics.

DOJ alleged that, from January 2017 through the settlement date, AFS certified compliance with those requirements while maintaining employment practices that considered race or sex. The government also alleged that AFS allocated costs associated with those practices to federal contracts and sought payment or reimbursement for those costs.

The settlement agreement identifies three principal categories of alleged conduct. First, DOJ alleged that AFS considered race or sex in hiring decisions as it sought to make progress toward non-public workforce composition goals. According to the settlement agreement, business unit leaders received monthly reports showing racial and sex representation within their units, with results displayed using green, yellow, and red indicators depending on progress toward internal demographic goals. The agreement states that these goals were internally referred to by one employee as “stealth” goals. DOJ further alleged that AFS expanded an entry-level hiring effort in late 2020 and early 2021 because an initial hiring round had not produced sufficient representation from certain racial demographics.

Second, DOJ alleged that AFS considered race or sex in promotion decisions. According to the government, AFS separately discussed certain managing director candidates who advanced the company’s demographic goals so that those employees would receive additional visibility from decision-makers. The government also alleged that AFS sometimes ranked those candidates separately, highlighted their names during the promotion process, and maintained a separate pipeline of potential candidates who would advance its demographic goals.

Third, and perhaps most relevant for contractors reviewing existing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, DOJ alleged that AFS limited access to certain training, mentoring, leadership development, and educational opportunities based on race or sex. DOJ specifically identified AFS’s Amplify to Elevate program, which operated from August 2022 through February 2025. According to the government, participation was reserved for certain employees based on race and provided mentorship and networking opportunities intended to improve participants’ career prospects.

A Developing DEI False Claims Act Enforcement Pattern

The Accenture settlement is significant not because DOJ has announced an entirely new enforcement theory, but because the theory is becoming increasingly established.

DOJ created its Civil Rights Fraud Initiative in May 2025 to use the FCA against federal contractors and recipients of federal funds that knowingly violate federal civil rights requirements while falsely certifying compliance with those requirements. IBM’s April settlement was announced as the first FCA resolution under that initiative. DOJ alleged that IBM tied compensation to demographic targets, used demographic criteria in hiring and promotion processes, and restricted access to certain career-development opportunities.

The August Deloitte settlement involved many of the same themes. DOJ alleged that Deloitte considered race or sex in hiring, promotion, and staffing decisions; tracked demographic goals; potentially tied senior leadership compensation to progress toward those goals; and restricted access to certain mentoring, sponsorship, training, and leadership programs. As we discussed in our prior blog post, the Deloitte settlement was particularly significant because DOJ’s theory relied largely on longstanding anti-discrimination obligations contained in federal contracts, rather than depending on the administration’s newer DEI-related contracting requirements.

The Accenture settlement reinforces that point. DOJ again relied on Title VII and FAR 52.222-26, which, as noted above, is no longer in effect, as incorporated into AFS’s federal contracts. So, contractors should not assume that FCA risk is limited to contracts containing the newer DEI provisions implemented during 2026. At the same time, the alleged conduct identified in the Accenture settlement closely resembles activities now expressly addressed by FAR 52.222-90, Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors.

The new framework defines “program participation” to include access to training, mentoring, leadership development programs, educational opportunities, and similar programs, and prohibits racially discriminatory DEI activities in employment and program participation. The Accenture settlement provides a useful indication of the types of practices that may draw scrutiny under both longstanding anti-discrimination requirements and the administration’s newer contracting provisions.

An interesting point in the Deloitte resolution is that it also illustrates that potential exposure may extend beyond federal enforcement. In addition to its $21.5 million federal settlement, Deloitte entered into separate $1.2 million settlements with Florida and Indiana to resolve parallel allegations under those states’ false claims laws. The matter also arose from a qui tam action filed under the FCA’s whistleblower provisions, which permit private relators to bring claims on behalf of the government and potentially receive a share of any recovery. DOJ reported that the relator received $4.3 million from the federal settlement.

So, contractors should recognize that scrutiny of allegedly discriminatory employment practices may originate not only with DOJ or state enforcement authorities, but also through private whistleblower actions.

What Should Government Contractors Review Now?

The emerging pattern across the IBM, Deloitte, and Accenture settlements suggests that contractors should look beyond whether an initiative is formally labeled a “DEI program.” DOJ appears focused on how employment programs operate in practice and whether protected characteristics affect who receives employment or professional-development opportunities.

Contractors should consider reviewing:

• Hiring and recruiting practices, including whether demographic goals influence candidate selection, interview slates, recruiting targets, or additional hiring efforts.
• Promotion and succession planning, particularly separate candidate lists, pipelines, rankings, or processes that identify employees by race or sex.
• Training, mentoring, sponsorship, and leadership-development programs to determine whether eligibility or access depends on protected characteristics.
• Internal demographic goals and dashboards, including how workforce representation data is presented to managers and whether managers are expected, formally or informally, to alter employment decisions based on those metrics.
• Compensation and performance measures to determine whether managers or executives are rewarded or evaluated based on achieving demographic employment outcomes.
• Government contract certifications and cost practices, including whether the company is certifying compliance with anti-discrimination requirements and whether costs associated with employment programs are allocated directly or indirectly to government contracts.

Contractors should also ensure that government contracts, employment, human resources, and compliance personnel are coordinating these reviews. An employment practice that creates traditional labor and employment risk may present an additional concern for a government contractor if the company is simultaneously certifying compliance with contractual anti-discrimination requirements and seeking government reimbursement for related costs.

Looking Ahead

With three substantial settlements in approximately five months, DOJ’s use of the FCA to address allegedly discriminatory employment practices increasingly appears to be a sustained enforcement priority rather than a series of isolated resolutions. The $25 million Accenture settlement is the largest of the three to date, and the detailed allegations provide contractors with a clearer picture of where DOJ is looking.

Most importantly, the recent settlements show that the relevant inquiry is not simply whether a contractor maintains a DEI program. Contractors should examine whether race, sex, or another protected characteristic actually affects hiring, promotion, compensation, staffing, training, mentorship, or access to career-development opportunities, and whether representations made to the government remain accurate in light of those practices.

For federal contractors, that review has become increasingly important as longstanding anti-discrimination provisions, the FCA, and newer DEI-specific contracting requirements converge.

Please contact the authors if you have any questions.