On April 27, 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order entitled “Increasing the Minimum Wage for Federal Contractors” that will raise the hourly minimum wage for federal contractors to $15.00 effective January 30, 2022. This Executive Order builds on Executive Order 13658 (“Establishing a Minimum Wage for Contractors”), issued by President Obama in 2014, which … Continue Reading
Federal civilian agencies will now face new restrictions on when and how they can use Lowest Price Technically Acceptable source selection procedures. A new rule in the Federal Acquisition Regulation is the latest in a series of measures aimed at regulating the use of LPTA source selection procedures. The new rule implements an October 2019 … Continue Reading
If your company delivers technical data to the Department of Defense, you should take a close look at the Federal Circuit’s decision issued yesterday in The Boeing Co. v. Secretary of the Air Force. The Court acknowledged that contractors may retain ownership and other interests in unlimited rights data, and it held that they may … Continue Reading
Just over a year after launching the Procurement Collusion Strike Force (“PCSF”), the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (“DOJ”) announced new measures to further its pursuit of antitrust and related crimes in government procurement, grant, and program funding. These changes expand the PCSF’s enforcement capacity and signal DOJ’s enduring—and intensifying—commitment to the PCSF’s mission. … Continue Reading
On October 21, 2020 the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (“OFCCP”) published a Request for Information (“RFI”) seeking voluntary submissions of workplace diversity and inclusion training information and materials from federal contractors, federal subcontractors, and their employees. The RFI was published pursuant to Executive Order 13950, Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping … Continue Reading
On September 22, 2020, President Trump issued the Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping (“EO”) establishing requirements aimed at “promoting unity in the Federal workforce,” by prohibiting workplace training on “divisive concepts,” including “race or sex stereotyping” and “race or sex scapegoating” as newly-defined in the EO. The EO is broadly applicable to … Continue Reading
The Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) released a decision on Friday finding that the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) followed the wrong order of succession after Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned in April 2019. As a result, the Acting Secretaries who have served since then were invalidly selected. In particular, GAO has questioned the appointments of Acting … Continue Reading
In recent years, both Congress and the Executive Branch have made it a key priority to mitigate risks across the industrial and innovation supply chains that provide hardware, software, and services to the U.S. government (“USG”). Five of these initiatives are likely to result in new regulations in 2020, each of which could have a … Continue Reading
On Friday, the General Services Administration (“GSA”) announced that it had awarded three contracts to develop online shopping portals for commercially-available off-the-shelf (“COTS”) items. The awardees are Amazon Business, Fisher Scientific, and Overstock.com.… Continue Reading
The government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic implicates a host of authorities of interest to contractors, from those under the Stafford Act to its recently invoked Defense Production Act powers. The government has another critical, and perhaps under-examined, set of tools at its disposal to meet the demands of the pandemic: FAR Part 18, “Emergency … Continue Reading
Following up on our post earlier this week giving a general overview of the Defense Production Act of 1950 (“DPA”), 50 U.S.C. §§4501 et seq., this post comments on President Trump’s March 18, 2020 Executive Order on Prioritizing and Allocating Health and Medical Resources to Respond to the Spread of COVID-19 (the “COVID-19 E.O.”) and … Continue Reading
As a followup to our recent post on the implications of the PREP Act for government contractors working to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak, this post will provide an overview of the Defense Production Act—including its key powers that the federal Government might invoke to counter the pandemic.… Continue Reading
We’ve covered several topics already this week on the U.S. Government’s varied responses to the COVID-19 outbreak and how these responses will affect contractors that do business with the government, including BARDA’s EZ-BAA for COVID-19 diagnostics, mission-essential services during the outbreak, and how excusable delay provisions may help federal contractors affected by the outbreak. But … Continue Reading
On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an opinion in Acetris Health, LLC v. United States, No. 2018-2399 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 10, 2020) (“Acetris”), that would permit pharmaceutical manufacturers to source a drug’s active pharmaceutical ingredient (“API”) from India, China and other non “designated countries” and yet still offer the … Continue Reading
The Trump Administration has declared this month National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, calling on industry associations, law enforcement, private businesses, and others to work toward ending modern slavery and human trafficking. This proclamation follows the Administration’s efforts to combat human trafficking, which we have previously discussed here, and comes on the heels of … Continue Reading
On December 13, the Department of Defense (“DoD”) released the latest version of its Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (“CMMC”). This is the third iteration of the draft model that DoD has publicly released since it issued the first draft in October. (We previously discussed Version 0.4 and Version 0.6 of the CMMC in prior blog … Continue Reading
Last week, the FAR Council issued a Final Rule, setting forth new FAR provisions that require the reporting of certain counterfeit and suspect counterfeit parts and certain major or critical nonconformances to the Government – Industry Data Exchange Program (“GIDEP”).[1] This Final Rule comes more than five years after the rule was first proposed in … Continue Reading
As previously discussed on this blog, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 and the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2018 imposed new limitations on when the Department of Defense can use Lowest Price Technically Acceptable source selection methods. Just last month, the Department of Defense issued a final rule amending the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement to … Continue Reading
On November 7, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition released Version 0.6 of its draft Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) for public comment. The CMMC was created in response to growing concerns by Congress and within DoD over the increased presence of cyber threats and intrusions aimed at the Defense Industrial … Continue Reading
The government has released its long-awaited annual report on federal suspension and debarment activities, and the data reflect a number of trends and developments that should be of keen interest to federal contractors and grantees. The report, which is published by the Interagency Suspension and Debarment Committee (“ISDC”), shows that suspension and debarment remain potent tools that are … Continue Reading
On October 2, 2019, the Department of Defense, General Services Administration, and NASA issued a proposed rule that would amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation to establish new restrictions on when and under what circumstances civilian agencies may employ Lowest Price Technically Acceptable source selection procedures. The proposed rule would implement Section 880 of the John … Continue Reading
After nearly two years of planning, GSA has released an RFP seeking prototypes of online shopping portals that would allow federal customers to buy COTS items from their computers. GSA’s plan implements Section 846 of the NDAA for FY 2018, which instructed the agency to create an internet marketplace exempt from many standard procurement regulations. … Continue Reading
On September 26, 2019, the Department of Defense issued a final rule amending the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement to establish new restrictions on the use of Lowest Price Technically Acceptable source selection procedures. Effective October 1, 2019, this new rule imposes specific limitations and prohibitions governing when and under what circumstances LPTA procedures are … Continue Reading
The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (“CISA”) Information and Communications Technology (“ICT”) Supply Chain Risk Management Task Force (the “Task Force”) recently released an interim public report. The report describes the Task Force’s efforts over the last year to develop recommendations for securing the Government’s supply chain, and outlines the potential … Continue Reading
