In legislation passed last week, Congress directed the FAR Council to issue new rules for contractor organizational conflicts of interest. The legislation itself did not create any new OCI standards, but provided factors for the council to consider, focusing on conflicts of interest for companies that act as consultants to the government.
It is unclear at this point what the precise nature and extent of the resulting changes to the OCI rules may be. But the new law makes it likely that there will be some fairly significant revisions. Congress set a deadline of Summer 2024 for the new regulations, so the contracting community should be on the lookout for a notice of proposed rulemaking in the coming months, and should not hesitate to submit comments for the government’s consideration.