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McCarter & English, LLP
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In the months since President Biden took office, legislators have tried—and thus far failed—to pass legislation raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. While the debate rages on, the Biden-Harris administration has taken executive action to ensure that some workers receive a higher wage for work under federal contracts. On April 27, 2021, President Biden issued the Executive Order on Increasing the Minimum Wage for Federal Contractors, which will have a (relatively)…
Federal government contract domestic preference requirements are set for significant changes. McCarter & English Government Contracts and Global Trade co-leaders Franklin Turner and Alex Major and Senior Associate Cara Wulf provide guidance for federal contractors in a Feature Comment for Thomson Reuters’ The Government Contractor. In the comprehensive article, the authors review the current regulatory landscape and detail the changes portended by the Biden administration’s EO “Ensuring the Future Is Made in All of America…
On December 21, 2020, the Department of Defense (DoD) Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security published a Final Rule codifying the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual (NISPOM)—currently published as part of DoD Manual 5220.22-M—in Title 34, Part 117 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The Final Rule became effective on February 24, 2021.…
A new administration has moved into the White House, and, as anticipated, President Biden wasted no time in issuing, in the first few days of his presidency, a raft of Executive Orders (EOs) that appear calculated to set the tone of his administration. Notably, many of these executive actions walk back (or attempt to fully erase) some of the signature policies of the Trump Administration. Some of these presidential actions have immediate implications for government…
On January 25, 2021, President Biden issued a sweeping Executive Order titled “Ensuring the Future Is Made in All of America by All of America’s Workers” (Order), which is intended to be the first step toward fulfilling his campaign promise to commit to American businesses by strengthening domestic preference rules in government procurement. The Order states the administration’s policy that the US government should “use terms and conditions of Federal financial assistance awards and Federal…
Each year, Congress presents us in Title VIII of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) a potpourri of procurement reforms, changes, and additions. Some are effective immediately, while some are bound for rulemaking and regulation and surface years from enactment. Some require analyses, reports, and studies which have no immediate impact but provide a roadmap that can and should be used by government contractors in their business planning. Finally, some provisions of the NDAAs just…
The Department of Defense (DoD) has finalized regulations prohibiting the use of telecommunications equipment or services from Chinese entities or from entities that are owned or controlled by either the People’s Republic of China or the Russian Federation. The Final Rule, which went into effect on Friday, January 15, 2021, prohibits the DoD from buying or using banned telecommunications equipment and services that are a “substantial or essential component of any system” or that…
On the eve of the inauguration of President Biden, a lingering Trump-era policy finally made its way into the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). On January 19, 2021, the FAR Council issued a final rule implementing changes first revealed in Executive Order 13881 (the E.O.), Maximizing Use of American-Made Goods, Products, and Materials (84 FR 34257, July 18, 2019). As we discussed in an earlier post on this topic, the E.O. mandated significant modifications to FAR…
On December 23, 2020, the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) issued its annual Bid Protest Statistics for Fiscal Year 2020. As we’ve previously noted in this blog, the GAO’s yearly Bid Protest Report to Congress provides a snapshot of bid protest metrics for each fiscal year, along with data on five-year trends in the GAO’s bid protest adjudication. The following chart provides a summary of the GAO’s statistics from FY 2020 through FY 2016:…
On January 14, 2021, the Department of Justice released its updated statistics for False Claims Act (FCA) recoveries in FY 2020. The Civil Division reported that it recovered $2.2 billion in settlements and judgments in the previous fiscal year—down nearly $900 million from FY 2019, and off nearly two-thirds from the government’s high-watermark collections of $6.1 billion in FY 2014. Although $2.2 billion in net FCA recoveries represents DOJ’s lowest FCA haul in a decade,…