18 U.S.C. § 443 — War contracts

This section punishes anyone who willfully hides, damages, blots out, or destroys certain records: (a) records of a war contractor about negotiating, awarding, carrying out, paying for, financing, canceling, or settling a war contract worth $25,000 or more; or (b) records of a war contractor or purchaser about disposing of leftover war supplies ("termination inventory"), where the payment received by the contractor or a government agency was $5,000 or more. Destroying these records is illegal only before a waiting period ends. That period is the longer of: (1) five years after the leftover supplies were disposed of, or (2) five years after the war contract was finally settled. Someone who willfully destroys these records too soon can be fined under this title or imprisoned for up to five years, or both. The Administrator of General Services can make regulations allowing these records to be destroyed anyway, under conditions the Administrator sets -- including requiring photographs or microphotographs to be made and kept. Those copies count as if they were the originals. Terms defined in section 103 of Title 41 apply here too, wherever this section uses the same words.