Law360, New York ( July 2, 2015, 10:16 AM EDT) -- Statute of limitations issues under the Contract Disputes Act have been a hot topic in recent years, due in large part to a spate of contractor-friendly decisions finding government claims to be time-barred. Contractors have rightly hailed these decisions as setting much-needed boundaries on the government's pursuit of stale claims. However, an unintended consequence of these decisions is that they have forced the Defense Contract Audit Agency and contracting officers to play "beat the clock" to file government claims inside of the CDA statute of limitations period, often without meaningful contractor engagement. For this reason, these decisions have led to an increase in claims litigation involving contractors, even for issues that both parties believe can and should be resolved through negotiations....