FCB is charged with helping the Office of National Drug Control Policy to meet a target of reducing illicit drug use among teens by 25% over the next five years. It pitched against Ogilvy & Mather sister WPP agency J Walter Thompson for the work, after O&M's contract expired in September.
O&M has been mired in controversy over the work, after allegations that it had over-billed the government for its work on the account.
The news of FCB's appointment comes as two executives who formerly worked on the account at Ogilvy await trial. They are Thomas Early, former chief financial officer of O&M's New York, and Shona Seifert, who was an executive group director at O&M at the time, but is now president of TBWA\Chiat\Day in New York.
Despite the scandal, O&M's work on the account was widely acclaimed, and it was reappointed by the ONDCP in 2002. It has paid the government $1.8m to settle a civil suit arising from the case, but has not admitted intentional wrongdoing, saying that it had been "unprepared" for the complex nature of billing the government account.
Seifert and Early face charges that they instructed staff to alter time sheets after they were not working as many hours on the account as expected. The pair could face hefty fines, as well as a prison sentence if found guilty.
Seifert is taking leave for three months from TBWA, starting in January, to prepare for the trial. She has strenuously denied any wrongdoing.
A third executive, Peter Chrisanthopoulos, has already pleaded guilty to falsifying time sheets and instructing another member of staff to do the same. He was a former president of broadcasting and programming at O&M and later at sister WPP Group agency MindShare, but left in 2000 to join the television company Pappas Telecasting as chief operating officer for marketing and sales. He resigned from that role earlier this year.
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