{"id":33667,"date":"2020-09-10T09:43:50","date_gmt":"2020-09-10T13:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/?p=33667"},"modified":"2020-09-18T15:37:29","modified_gmt":"2020-09-18T19:37:29","slug":"dojs-focus-on-ppp-fraud-and-some-investigative-considerations-in-evaluating-a-clients-exposure-to-prosecution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/dojs-focus-on-ppp-fraud-and-some-investigative-considerations-in-evaluating-a-clients-exposure-to-prosecution\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ\u2019s Focus on PPP Fraud and Some Investigative Considerations in Evaluating a Client\u2019s Exposure to Prosecution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic, Congress passed relief legislation authorizing unprecedented federal aid to states, businesses, and individuals.\u00a0 In short order, a torrent of federal spending flowed.\u00a0 While those days may seem long gone as initial relief dollars have dried up and Congress is now debating additional relief programs, the Department of Justice (\u201cDOJ\u201d) remains focused on investigating and prosecuting fraud schemes arising from relief programs rolled out at the beginning of the pandemic.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\"><sup>[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One of the relief programs receiving special attention from DOJ is the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA).\u00a0 Through the PPP, participating banks lent money to qualifying businesses, which loans the SBA guaranteed.\u00a0 Subject to certain conditions, the SBA agreed to forgive the loans.\u00a0 Some of the key loan conditions included, for example: the requested loan was to be used to pay costs eligible for forgiveness (<em>e.g.<\/em>, payroll, mortgage interest, rent and utility costs); payroll was to be capped at $100,000 per employee, annualized; the borrower was not to reduce salaries or hourly wages by more than 25 percent for any employee during the relevant period.<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\"><sup>[2]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 To obtain the loan, the borrower had to sign and certify the PPP loan forgiveness application.<\/p>\n<p>DOJ\u2019s initial investigations of PPP fraud schemes have appeared to focus on the eligibility of borrowers (<em>i.e.<\/em>, whether they had a real business with real employees, whether the size of the payroll matched representations in the loan application, <em>etc.<\/em>) and the use of the proceeds (<em>i.e.<\/em>, whether the proceeds were spent on permissible items).\u00a0 Thus far, DOJ&#8217;s prosecutions for PPP fraud have involved allegations of egregious misconduct.\u00a0 As DOJ&#8217;s enforcement efforts continue, it is likely that DOJ will start bringing prosecutions concerning conduct that may be closer to the line and that may fall in gray areas.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/dojs-focus-on-ppp-fraud-and-some-investigative-considerations-in-evaluating-a-clients-exposure-to-prosecution\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading DOJ\u2019s Focus on PPP Fraud and Some Investigative Considerations in Evaluating a Client\u2019s Exposure to Prosecution\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic, Congress passed relief legislation authorizing unprecedented federal aid to states, businesses, and individuals.\u00a0 In short order, a torrent of federal spending flowed.\u00a0 While those days may seem long gone as initial relief dollars have dried up and Congress is now debating additional relief programs, the Department of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[46],"class_list":["post-33667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-white-collar-and-federal-criminal-defense","tag-white-collar"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>DOJ\u2019s Focus on PPP Fraud and Some Investigative Considerations in Evaluating a Client\u2019s Exposure to Prosecution &#8212; Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; September 10, 2020<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic, Congress passed relief legislation authorizing unprecedented federal aid to states, businesses, and &#8212; September 10, 2020\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/dojs-focus-on-ppp-fraud-and-some-investigative-considerations-in-evaluating-a-clients-exposure-to-prosecution\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"DOJ\u2019s Focus on PPP Fraud and Some Investigative Considerations in Evaluating a Client\u2019s Exposure to Prosecution &#8212; Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; September 10, 2020\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"In the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic, Congress passed relief legislation authorizing unprecedented federal aid to states, businesses, and &#8212; September 10, 2020\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Finch McCranie, LLP\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"DOJ\u2019s Focus on PPP Fraud and Some Investigative Considerations in Evaluating a Client\u2019s Exposure to Prosecution &#8212; Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; September 10, 2020","description":"In the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic, Congress passed relief legislation authorizing unprecedented federal aid to states, businesses, and &#8212; September 10, 2020","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/dojs-focus-on-ppp-fraud-and-some-investigative-considerations-in-evaluating-a-clients-exposure-to-prosecution\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"DOJ\u2019s Focus on PPP Fraud and Some Investigative Considerations in Evaluating a Client\u2019s Exposure to Prosecution &#8212; Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; September 10, 2020","twitter_description":"In the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic, Congress passed relief legislation authorizing unprecedented federal aid to states, businesses, and &#8212; September 10, 2020","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Finch McCranie, LLP","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/dojs-focus-on-ppp-fraud-and-some-investigative-considerations-in-evaluating-a-clients-exposure-to-prosecution\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/dojs-focus-on-ppp-fraud-and-some-investigative-considerations-in-evaluating-a-clients-exposure-to-prosecution\/"},"author":{"name":"Finch McCranie, LLP","@id":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4c607d19a3fdb947c462210c077ff4a4"},"headline":"DOJ\u2019s Focus on PPP Fraud and Some Investigative Considerations in Evaluating a Client\u2019s Exposure to Prosecution","datePublished":"2020-09-10T13:43:50+00:00","dateModified":"2020-09-18T19:37:29+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/dojs-focus-on-ppp-fraud-and-some-investigative-considerations-in-evaluating-a-clients-exposure-to-prosecution\/"},"wordCount":576,"keywords":["White Collar"],"articleSection":["White Collar and Federal Criminal Defense"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/dojs-focus-on-ppp-fraud-and-some-investigative-considerations-in-evaluating-a-clients-exposure-to-prosecution\/","url":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/dojs-focus-on-ppp-fraud-and-some-investigative-considerations-in-evaluating-a-clients-exposure-to-prosecution\/","name":"DOJ\u2019s Focus on PPP Fraud and Some Investigative Considerations in Evaluating a Client\u2019s Exposure to Prosecution &#8212; 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