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 the Federal Register in June 2014.  The FAR Council describes the Final Rule as “significantly…

On November 6, 2019, the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (“OFCCP”) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) aimed at resolving what OFCCP describes as a “decade of confusion.”[1] At issue is a long-standing question concerning the scope of OFCCP’s enforcement authority over health care providers participating in TRICARE, a federal health care program covering millions of military personnel, veterans, and their families. In particular, the NPRM requests comments on…

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 used frequently across the executive branch, even if the total number of exclusion actions dipped slightly from the previous…

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.  As we have previously discussed in this blog, GSA began planning in 2017, sought input from industry in 2018…

Changes are coming to the suspension and debarment practices of the Small Business Administration (SBA), and contractors should ready themselves for an uptick in suspension and debarment activity as a result.  That’s the takeaway from a new audit report released last week by the SBA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) criticizing aspects of the agency’s suspension and debarment practices.  Although the SBA’s suspending and debarring officials (SDOs) for Financial Assistance Programs (FAP) and All…