The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, & Logistics, Frank Kendall, made seismic remarks last week announcing that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) will seek independent authority from Congress to approve or disapprove M&A transactions in the defense industrial base for national security reasons, creating potential shock waves among the companies in that … Continue Reading
The Department of Defense published a long awaited proposed rule on August 3, 2015, amending the DFARS to provide guidance for evaluating the reasonableness of prices using data other than certified cost or pricing data. The proposed rule falls short of its goal, instead increasing confusion in the determination of price reasonableness for commercial goods that … Continue Reading
Earlier this week, the Department of Defense (“DoD”) issued a proposed rule to revise (and make stricter) the unique sourcing requirements applicable to certain photovoltaic devices that are used in the performance of DoD contracts. Specifically, unless an exception under the Trade Agreements Act applies or a contractor secures a waiver based on public interest … Continue Reading
Over the past decade, Congress has focused on eliminating excessive “pass-through” charges—charges defined as overhead costs or profits passed to the Government by contractors adding negligible value over work done by lower-tier contractors. The efforts began with the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006, which introduced limitations on tiered subcontracts after allegations that the … Continue Reading
During markup of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA FY 2016”) on April 27, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX) proposed an amendment that would provide liability protection to certain Department of Defense (“DoD”) contractors for properly reporting cyber incidents on their networks and information systems. This amendment relates back to two … Continue Reading
In a span of two days, two separate agencies took action against contractor policies and agreements that may discourage whistleblowers. On March 30, 2015, the U.S. Department of State Office of Inspector General (“State OIG”) issued a report contending that certain contractor policies and agreements have a “chilling effect” on whistleblowers. On April 1, 2015, … Continue Reading
On February 25, 2015, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (AT&L) issued a memorandum containing an agency “Scorecard” for the implementation of the DFARS clause on safeguarding Unclassified Controlled Technical Information (“UCTI”). The final UCTI rule was published on November 18, 2013 and required the new DFARS clause 252.204-7012−which imposes requirements for (1) safeguarding … Continue Reading
Despite other areas of disagreement involving the defense budget and U.S. military strategy in the Middle East, the Obama Administration and Senate Republicans might be uniting to fast-track the sale of U.S. defense articles and services to U.S. allies fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (“ISIS”). Consider three recent developments involving Jordan.… Continue Reading
On January 15, 2015, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (“SIGAR”) released a new report, Department of Defense: More Than 75 Percent of All SIGAR Audit and Inspection Report Recommendations Have Been Implemented (“SIGAR Report”). At 86 pages, the SIGAR Report might be expected to robustly catalogue and analyze how the Department of Defense (“DOD”) … Continue Reading
A major piece of IT acquisition reform legislation called the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (“FITARA”), on which we have previously reported, was included in version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 (“NDAA FY 15”) passed by the House on December 4, 2014, along with other significant IT reform provisions related to … Continue Reading
When a bid protester decides to accuse an agency of bias, there usually are two separate, potentially cross-cutting concerns: (1) how the allegation might impact customer relations; and (2) whether the allegation will have traction at the GAO or the Court of Federal Claims (the “Court”). A recent opinion by the Court offers some perspective on the … Continue Reading
On October 15, 2014, the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) released a report on U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) contract spending between 2000 and 2013. The report analyzes publicly available information from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) and thus does not consider classified contracts, which CSIS estimates to account for up to … Continue Reading
