On July 25, the GSA’s Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) published a report summarizing its audit of the GSA Transactional Data Reporting (“TDR”) pilot program. That ongoing pilot program, which we have covered previously and have been tracking since the beginning, allows participating Federal Supply Schedule (“FSS”) contract-holders to report government-sales data each month, in exchange for relief from regulations that would require them to disclose their commercial sales practices. According to the OIG report, however, GSA cannot objectively measure whether the TDR program is working as intended, because the pilot lacks specific objectives and performance targets. Moreover, the data that GSA has collected from TDR participants is “not available for . . . evaluation of the pilot.” Although the Federal Acquisition Service (“FAS”) disagreed with some of the report’s findings, the report suggests that the TDR program remains a work-in-progress.
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Procurement Policy
Contracting by Tweet: What Impact Can the New Administration Have on Existing Contracts and Future Awards?
By Sandy Hoe on
Posted in Procurement Policy, Procurement Reform
Among the many subjects to receive President-elect Trump’s attention in advance of his swearing in on January 20 are venerable defense contractors and their performance of major systems contracts. The Boeing Company (Boeing) and Lockheed Martin (Lockheed) have both felt the “heat of the tweet” – Boeing for the projected cost of the next generation of presidential aircraft and Lockheed for its F35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pointed attention has led some to question the authority of a president to alter existing contractual relations or to impact the award of future contracts. Can a president require contractors to lower prices on existing contracts or direct that future awards not be made to companies that fail to adopt practices the president favors, e.g., retaining jobs in the United States? A president always has the bully pulpit to pressure high-profile government contractors to “voluntarily” take actions to their detriment and in favor of the government, but what legal tools or contractual remedies are available if a president forces a particular outcome?…
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New FAR Rule Encourages “Constructive Exchanges” between Federal Agencies and Contractors
By Covington Team on
On November 29, 2016, the Department of Defense, General Services Administration, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration proposed an amendment to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (“FAR”) aiming to encourage pre-acquisition communications between industry professionals and federal agencies. This amendment is part of a five-year long effort by the Obama Administration to clarify that communications between potential government contractors and federal agencies are not only allowed, but encouraged. …
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