Two Ballard Spahr lawyers share red flags and diligence tips to help reduce risk when high-growth startups mislead stakeholders. High-growth startups inspire a lot of excitement, and increasingly, a lot of scrutiny. Over the past several years, federal prosecutors have brought headline-grabbing cases against startup founders who were once viewed as visionaries. That's obviously not great for the founder, but these cases can also cause economic and reputational issues for other stakeholders in the company, including investors. Even if the investor won't be subject [...]

A recent indictment underscores the U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ")'s focus on cybersecurity compliance in federal contracting and DOJ's willingness to escalate enforcement beyond the civil False Claims Act (see Foley's prior reporting here and here) to bring criminal charges against individuals. On December 10, 2025, DOJ announced that a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia has indicted Danielle Hillmer, a former senior manager at a Virginia‑based government contractor, on charges of major government fraud, wire fraud, [...]

In November, the US Attorney's Office in the District of New Jersey filed a criminal complaint alleging that Indonesian jewelry company UBS Gold, its Indonesian co-owner Michael Yahya, and two company employees engaged in a five-year-long conspiracy to evade duties and tariffs owed for shipments of jewelry to the United States. The complaint alleges that defendants avoided over $86 million in duties and tariffs on more than $1.2 billion in jewelry shipments. This is [...]