C. Rule Does Not Pass a Cost/Benefit Analysis

Comments: Five comments were received on this issue. One respondent remarked that the new requirement will be unnecessarily burdensome with little, if any, commensurate benefit. The respondent called the rule "an example of the stacking of regulations within and across agencies that increases the burden without any apparent benefit to achieving the mission." Three other respondents made essentially the same point, one suggesting that the rule could be viewed as an unintentional but unfortunate effort by DoD to discourage contractors from implementing rigorous internal mechanisms for dealing with compliance concerns. A respondent suggested that the proposed rule ignored the significant change already made to the FAR that requires mandatory reporting to the agency IG if the contractor has credible evidence of a violation of Federal criminal law involving fraud, conflict of interest, bribery, or gratuity, or a violation of the civil False Claims Act in connection with Government contracts (see FAR 3.1003(b)).

According to one respondent, many company employee hotline reports simply disclose a concern about an activity or behavior without the employee knowing whether it violates only company policy or some Government contract provision or law. Posting the DoD IG hotline poster will confuse employees, asserted the respondent, and will result in company employees not reporting potentially valuable information to anyone.

Response: A requirement to hang a free poster in work areas does not appear to be measurably burdensome. Further, the DoD poster contains a prominent location for inclusion of the contractor's own fraud hotline number and does not preclude or preempt posting of a contractor's separate fraud hotline poster. As to any additional burden on the DoD IG, that office has weighed the potential cost and elected this approach.