After a U.S. district court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining implementation of the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” final rule (discussed here), OFPP issued a Memorandum for Chief Acquisition Officers on October 25 instructing federal agencies to refrain from implementing the enjoined portions of the final rule, and to “immediately” amend any solicitations containing such clauses. See the OFPP Memo here.…

On October 24, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction, enjoining the Government from implementing the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” final rule (with a small carve out for the “paycheck transparency” requirements). Specifically, the Court enjoined the Government from (i) implementing any portion of the FAR Rule or DOL Guidance relating to the new reporting and disclosure requirements regarding labor law violations as described in the…

Many federal government contractors and subcontractors have expressed valid concerns about the new “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” final rule (and accompanying Department of Labor guidance), which among other things will require companies bidding on covered contracts and subcontracts to disclose “administrative merits determinations,” “arbitral award or decisions,” and “civil judgments” rendered against the company under 14 separate labor and employment laws.  Contracting officers, in turn, will be required to consider this labor compliance information…

On Wednesday, September 7th, 2016 at 12 PM Eastern, join us for a webinar titled “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” Final Rule and Guidance: What You Need to Know. During this 90-minute webinar, a team of Crowell & Moring government contracts and labor & employment attorneys will discuss how contractors bidding on contracts covered by the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” Final Rule and Guidance will be required to disclose whether there have been…

On August 25, 2016, the Obama Administration published the long-awaited Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) final rule and Department of Labor (DOL) final guidance implementing the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” executive order (“Executive Order”) (available here and here). The underlying executive order has been amended (available here) with purportedly technical corrections to conform the final rule and guidance to the Executive Order. The rule adds subpart 22.20 to the FAR and imposes new…

In the latest twist to the Administration’s roll-out of the new “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” rules, OIRA now identifies the rules as Economically Significant (a change from several days ago, discussed here), which means that the administration will have to provide a more detailed assessment of the likely benefits and costs of the regulatory action pursuant to EO 12866.  The accompanying DoL guidance is still listed as not Economically Significant, but that may…

In a sign that the Obama Administration may be preparing to rush the publication of the FAR Council’s final rules implementing the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” executive order in order to avoid timing problems associated with the Congressional Review Act, the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (responsible for reviewing the rules before sending them to the FAR Secretariat for publication, discussed here), now lists the new rules as not “Economically…