had omitted material information from its Eighth Quarterly Report, which it filed with the district court in January 2002. Upon determining the company could seek relief only under the Contract Disputes Act of 1978, 41 U.S.C. § 601 et. seq., the district court in September 2002 dismissed NAID's motion to intervene.


5
In October 2002 Special Master Balaran, following up on NAID's allegations, contacted the Department of Justice and asked for a copy of the administrative record upon which the Interior Department had based the Eighth Quarterly Report. Some weeks later the district court formally sanctioned Balaran's inquiry, directing him "to ascertain whether there is any validity to NAID's contention that ... Interior withheld information from the Court that should have been disclosed in the Eighth Quarterly Report." In lateJanuary 2003 Interior's counsel at Justice wrote to Balaran stating that Interior would produce unprivileged documents, along with a privilege log, by mid-February, but that did not happen. Interior's counsel instead invited Balaran to inspect the documents at the Department of Justice, which he did on February 27. Interior's counsel also arranged for Mr. Michael S. Smith, an Executive Vice President of NAID who had worked on the "TAAMS Project Team" and was knowledgeable about the administrative record, to attend on the 27th. Earlier that year, Smith had written to Interior on NAID's behalf reiterating the allegations of fraud and demanding monetary relief.


6
Shortly after the inspection, and unbeknownst to the Departments of Interior and of Justice, Balaran hired Smith to assist him in collecting and analyzing documents relevant