By Edward W. Bailey, Soon after the end of fiscal year 2019, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) reported that its Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) had made record breaking recoveries against employers. In its year-end report, the DOL revealed that it collected a remarkable $322 million in back-wages owed to workers. WHD’s new administrator, Cheryl… Read more »
Centre Knowledge Blog
GAO Finds That DOD Faced Fraud and National Security Risks From Contracting in 2019
By Heather Mims, Esq. The Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) published a report on November 25, 2019 which recommended that the Department of Defense (“DOD”) should include an assessment of risks related to contractor ownership as part of its ongoing efforts to conduct fraud risk assessments. See Ongoing DOD Fraud Risk Assessment Efforts Should Include Contractor… Read more »
“Cold Take” Alert: There’s A Reason It’s Called “Working At Risk”
By David Warner, Last month, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims issued a decision underscoring the substantial risk contractors incur if they perform work not properly authorized by the appropriate government authority. The decision in Panther Brands, LLC v. United States, No. 16-1157C (Dec. 17, 2019) serves as a stark reminder that, even in the… Read more »
GSA Multiple Award Schedule Mass Modification Will Impact Pending and Current Schedule Holders – January 2020
By JW Butler On October 1, 2019 The General Services Administration (GSA) released the new Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) 47QSMD20R0001. GSA has tentatively scheduled the first mass modification refresh for the MAS Solicitation 47QSMD20R0001 for January 2020. The MAS will be updated to incorporate the below changes in Refresh #1: Implement the 2nd Interim… Read more »
FAR “Fake” News! FAR Amended to Require Reporting of Counterfeit Items
By Hon. Jack Delman Background On November 22, 2019, the DOD, GSA and NASA jointly issued a final FAR rule, effective December 23, 2019, amending the FAR to require contractors and subcontractors to report to the “Government – Industry Data Exchange Program” (GIDEP) certain counterfeit or suspected counterfeit parts as well as certain major or… Read more »
New DOJ Strike Force Aimed at Contractors is Likely Overhyped
By Tyler Freiberger, Esq., The Department of Justice recently announced the new Procurement Collusion Strike Force (“PCSF”), an inter-agency partnership that includes prosecutors from DOJ’s Antitrust Division and 13 U.S. attorneys’ offices, FBI investigators, and several agency Inspectors General offices. The stated goal of this partnership is “deterring, detecting, investigating and prosecuting antitrust crimes” in the government… Read more »
Phase 2 – Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) Consolidation
By Julia Coon, The General Services Administration (GSA) completed Phase 1 of the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) consolidation on October 1, 2019 when the new MAS solicitation consolidating the twenty-four legacy Schedules into one single solicitation was published. Phase 2 of the MAS consolidation will begin in January 2020 when GSA issues a mass… Read more »
Debriefings: A Modest Proposal
By William Weisberg, Esq., So, I was asking myself, what about government contracts drives me up a wall? More particularly, what is most frustrating to me, as a practicing procurement lawyer? Easy: debriefings. We (at least contractor “we”) have participated in debriefings where the government “script” was some variation on: “Your proposal was terrible. Here… Read more »
The DOD Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification: Is Your Organization Prepared?
By Angel N. Davis, With Cybersecurity awareness a keen focal point, regardless of business size, Government Contractors now have an overwhelming responsibility to ensure the safeguarding of sensitive customer data. The latest Department of Defense (DOD) regulation being developed to support the growing number of cybersecurity concerns , is the DOD Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification…. Read more »
President Trump Revokes Executive Order Providing for Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers
By Heather Mims, Esq. Under Executive Order 13495, the policy of the Federal Government was that all Service Contract Act covered contracts over the simplified acquisition threshold were to include a contract clause requiring contractors to make good-faith offers of employment to predecessor SCA-covered employees. However, on October 31, 2019, President Trump issued an “Executive… Read more »
