Title 41 of the U.S. Code holds many of the key laws governing contracts with the federal government. A four-year effort to organize this collection of public contract laws and remove “ambiguities, contradictions, and other imperfections” was completed on January 4, 2011. The President’s signature on Public Law No. 111-350, 124 Stat. 367 (Jan. 4, 2011) [pdf] has the effect of renumbering the entirety of Title 41 and giving new section numbers to many of the most important government contract laws.
Some examples of the revised citations—
- The Buy American Act, formerly at 41 U.S.C. §§ 10a-10d, will be found at 41 U.S.C. §§ 8301-8305.
- The Anti-Kickback Act, formerly at 41 U.S.C. §§ 51-58, will be found at 41 U.S.C. §§ 8701-8707.
- The Competition in Contracting Act, formerly at 41 U.S.C. § 253, will be found at 41 U.S.C. §§ 3301-3311.
- The Service Contract Act, formerly at 41 U.S.C. §§ 351-358, will be found at 41 U.S.C. §§ 6701-6707.
- The Contract Disputes Act, formerly at 41 U.S.C. §§ 601-613, will be found at 41 U.S.C. §§ 7101-7109.
The changes will require updating your references to these and other commonly-cited statutes, but for now the revisions appear to be technical in nature. If you’re looking for a good comparison of the old and new section numbers, as well as a summary of the code provisions that were deleted because they were deemed obsolete or unnecessary, check out the House Report accompanying HR 1107 (Mar. 23, 2009) [pdf].