Agility Defense & Government Services, Inc. v. United States provides hope to contractors that incur higher than anticipated costs on a requirements contract or, alternatively, on construction contracts where line item prices are based on estimated quantities.
Continue Reading Federal Circuit Clarifies Requirements for Government-Furnished Estimated Quantities
Last month, we outlined Congress’ plan to block the implementation of President Obama’s Fair Play and Safe Workplaces executive order. Today, we report that the prognosis has grown even more grim for the former President’s initiative, as both the House of Representatives and Senate have passed measures blocking the order from taking effect – now, the only remaining hurdle to a full repeal of the Fair Play and Safe Workplaces order is the signature of the President.
Continue Reading The End is Near for “Fair Play and Safe Workplaces”
For the last few months, we have been following the troubled rollout of the “Fair Play and Safe Workplaces” rules, an Obama-era Executive Order that placed new requirements on contractors prohibiting certain labor practices. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the controversial act is likely to be a casualty of the new administration’s deregulatory agenda.
Continue Reading Congress Strikes Blow to “Fair Play and Safe Workplaces”
Government contractors know that an unfavorable performance review posted to the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (“CPARS”) can be extremely costly. Many negotiated solicitations include past performance as an important or even primary evaluation factor for contract award. An unfavorable review on a past contract can impose significant costs on the contractor to address the unfavorable review with contracting officers on future solicitations. However, the contractor saddled with an unfair and inaccurate CPARS review may now have a means to challenge the review and recover some of these costs.
Continue Reading A New Way to Claim Damages Resulting from an Unfavorable CPARS Rating
Several months ago, we summarized the issuance and implications of Executive Order 13673, known as the “Fair Play and Safe Workplaces” order. In short, the order requires federal contractors to:
Continue Reading Federal Court Puts a Halt to “Fair Play and Safe Workplaces”
In United States v. Nagle, the Third Circuit provided instruction on how to calculate the amount of “loss” defendants are attributed when being sentenced in a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (“DBE”) fraud case. Going forward, in a DBE fraud case, the loss calculation must include consideration of the fair market value of the services rendered to the government under the affected contract, or contracts.
Continue Reading Third Circuit Allows for Offset when Calculating Loss in DBE Fraud Cases
It is not uncommon, in the litigation of a federal construction claim, for the Government to produce gigabytes of electronic data, amounting to thousands and thousands of documents, in response to a motion for the production of documents. Frequently, these “electronic” documents are simply the scanned versions of paper files in the Government’s offices. In the scanning process, extensive duplication occurs and documents that are clearly separate in paper file folders are scanned together in a manner that often combines multiple documents. Once combining occurs, it is very difficult for the recipient of the electronic information to tell where one document ends and the next one begins. Documents and their attachments become confused, are re-arranged, and difficult to follow.
Continue Reading E-Discovery- Bring Back the Boxes
In December 2014, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an important decision that impacts how the 6 year statute of limitations (SOL) is applied under the Contract Disputes Act (CDA). In Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation v. United States, the Court of Appeals determined that the CDA’s 6 year SOL for filing a
Effective today, a new Anti-Trafficking rule will substantially change and increase federal contractors’ compliance and certification requirements. The Anti-Trafficking rule requires that all federal contractors take certain actions related to combating human trafficking and slavery in their supply and contracting chains. Human trafficking has been a high-profile issue in government contracting in recent years, drawing
Recently, Maria Panichelli was interviewed by Raymond Thibodeaux from AOC Key Solutions for a podcast entitled “Guilty by Affiliation.” During this podcast, Maria and Ray spoke about a variety of affiliation-related issues. Topics covered included the various types of affiliation, the consequences of being deemed “affiliated” with another business, and, perhaps most importantly,