Contractors: get ready for the new DOJ anti-trust task force!
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Four steps to winning an Arizona bid protest
Big changes to the Buy American Act are coming—will they matter?
On July 15, 2019, President Trump signed Executive Order 13881 addressing domestic preferences in government procurement. Unlike Executive Order 13788 (April 18, 2017) and Executive Order 13858 (Jan. 31, 2019), which had no substantive effect on existing domestic preference statutes and regulations, this one does.
EO 13881 calls for the FAR Council to make two significant changes to FAR clauses implementing the Buy American Act. The first increases the domestic content requirements for items…
Does the Christian Doctrine apply to subcontractors?
Under the Christian Doctrine, prime contractors face the risk of having a court or a board of contract appeals read a clause into their contracts, even if it was omitted from the contract that they signed. In this entry we discuss whether the Christian Doctrine applies to subcontractors.
The Christian Doctrine is almost certainly inapplicable to subcontractors. For the reasons why, consider the decision in Energy Labs, Inc. v. Edwards Engineering, Inc., (N.D. Ill. June …
Government contractor pleads guilty to fraud for paying drivers as independent contractors
Paying workers as independent contractors instead of as employees may land a former executive in jail for criminal wire fraud. On June 12, 2019, the former operations manager and vice president of a Florida-based mail transportation contractor pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud related to such treatment. The Government’s case was based on pricing estimates for employee-related costs that the contractor later did not incur because it instead used independent contractors.
In the June…
The importance of specificity in small business joint venture agreements
Don’t delay a pre-award debriefing
Transportation companies dominate 2018 list of top U.S. Postal Service suppliers
Transportation companies again dominate this year’s Top 150 U.S. Postal Service Suppliers list. All told, USPS spent nearly $16 billion on purchases in FY 2018, about $900 million more than last year. Not surprisingly for an agency charged with moving the mail, six of the top ten contractors provide transportation services or equipment.
The Top 150 list has been compiled annually since 1999 by David Hendel, a partner in the firm’s Technology, Manufacturing, and …
Can you be forced to sign this contract modification?
Every year or so, the U.S. Postal Service changes the standard Terms and Conditions that apply to its newly awarded Highway Contract Route (HCR) and Contract Delivery Service (CDS) contacts. When this occurs, the new terms only apply to newly awarded contracts–existing contracts are unaffected and retain the same terms as when awarded.
But this year, the Postal Service has sought to apply new Terms and Conditions to existing CDS contracts as well as newly awarded ones. In an email…
Iran sanctions update for US government contractors
Iran sanctions lifted as part of the Iran Nuclear Deal went back into effect today, November 5, 2018. Companies seeking or performing US government contracts should take this opportunity to confirm that none of their international vendors, suppliers, and subcontractors are on the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list.
As discussed in more detail in this blog post by our firm’s Export Controls and Economic Sanctions team, the reimposed sanctions extend to a wide…