A contractor who is proposed for debarment is effectively debarred as soon as the notice letter is received. It is like being sentenced before trial, and it can take weeks or months for the contractor to convince the debarring official
Contractors often seek to recover attorney’s fees if they successfully present and resolve a claim, either through a negotiated settlement or litigation. In reality, of course, the government usually requires a waiver of Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) fees
On August 22, 2024, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint-in-intervention in a previously filed whistleblower suit under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act (FCA) against the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and Georgia Tech
Under the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) mentor-protégé program, smaller businesses are afforded the tools to compete for government contracts by partnering with larger businesses that serve as mentors to the small businesses. In theory, both the mentor and the protégé
By Stephen Tobin
In 2021, the DOJ announced its Civil-Cyber-Fraud Initiative, which focused on contractors who fail to follow required cybersecurity standards. The initiative is aimed at accountability for knowingly providing deficient cybersecurity products or services, knowingly misrepresenting their cybersecurity
The System for Award Management (SAM) is the official website for registering to do business with the U.S. government, such as competing for federal procurement contracts. Under FAR 52.204-7, “an Offeror is required to be registered in SAM when submitting
Construction law is a complex field that intersects with various other industries and legal fields, one being the maritime industry. In nearly twenty years of practicing construction law, I have often experienced the connection between these sophisticated areas of law
Sanford Federal, Inc., the selected awardee for a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) contract, learned the hard way that a contractor simply cannot ignore a size protest, regardless of its actual merit.
On August 8, 2023, the VA
In Steiner Construction Co., Inc., the Government Accountability Office (GAO) upheld the U.S. Coast Guard’s (USCG) award of a $1.19 billion small business set-aside shipbuilding contract to a business concern that was later determined to be other than a small
On December 26, 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) published the much anticipated proposed rule for the revamped Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) 2.0 Program.
Following growing concerns within DoD that contractors were not consistently implementing the cybersecurity requirements