Husch Blackwell

Subscribe to Husch Blackwell's Posts
Contact:Read more about Husch Blackwell

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.…

The standard form construction contract documents published by the American Institute of Architects are used widely throughout the construction industry. With assistance from federal agencies, the AIA created specific construction contract documents, such as the B-108-2009, to address the unique nature of federally-funded and insured projects. This year the AIA issued its once-a-decade revisions to address…

On August 29, 2017, the White House Office of Management and Budget announced that it would immediately pause the pay-data collection requirement of the revised EEO-1 form that was scheduled to take effect in March 2018. The data collection requirement would have significantly expanded employers’ reporting obligations to the EEOC to include pay data by gender, race and ethnicity on the annual EEO-1 form. The EEO-1 is required of employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors and subcontractors with 50 or more employees.

The expanded EEO-1 reporting requirements had their genesis in an April 8, 2014 Presidential Memorandum, which directed the Secretary of Labor to propose “a rule that would require Federal contractors and subcontractors to submit to DOL summary data on the compensation paid their employees, including data by sex and race.” In a January 29, 2016 fact sheet, the Obama administration explained that the heightened EEO-1 reporting requirements would “help focus public enforcement of our equal pay laws and provide better insight into discriminatory pay practices across industries and occupations.”

President Trump’s OMB sees things differently. In its memorandum halting implementation of the proposed rule, OMB says that the heightened reporting requirements “lack practical utility, are unnecessarily burdensome, and do not adequately address privacy and confidentiality issues.” Further, these burdens outweighed any benefit that might come from implementing the expanded requirements at this time. OMB directed the EEOC to submit a new information collection package for the EEO-1 form for OMB’s review and to publish a notice in the Federal Register confirming that businesses may use the previously approved EEO-1 form in order to comply with their FY 2017 reporting obligations.  

President Trump’s April 18, 2017 Executive Order announces that it is “the policy of the executive branch to buy American and hire American.” It demands that federal agencies enforce and comply with all current “Buy American Laws.”

There is nothing remarkable about that. New policy initiatives and statutory changes will come later, presumably with the input of the affected agencies. The Order requires federal agencies to assess and monitor their enforcement and implementation of existing Buy American Laws, including their use of waivers and the impact waivers may have on jobs and manufacturing. Based on the 150-day deadline in the Order, the agency reports are due by September 15, 2017.

The most controversial and most significant changes resulting from President Trump’s Order are likely to come as a result of changes to existing trade agreements. The President’s Order requires the Secretary of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative to assess the impact of all United States free trade agreements and the WTO Government Procurement Agreement. By November 24, 2017, they are to submit a report to the President containing “specific recommendations to strengthen implementation of Buy American Laws.”

GAO’s recent decision in HP Enterprise Services, LLC illustrates the challenges resulting from the recent changes to GAO’s task order protest jurisdiction. It also provides a useful overview of the current scope of GAO’s jurisdiction over such protests.  HP Enterprise Services, LLC—Reconsideration, B-413382.3 (January 26, 2017).

Here is a bit of background on the recent jurisdictional changes that led to the decision. GAO lost its jurisdiction over protests of civilian task and delivery orders valued at over $10 million on September 30, 2016. This was the “sunset date” established in the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. GAO’s jurisdiction over such protests for military agencies or departments, or for protests alleging increased scope, period, or maximum value of the underlying contract, remained undisturbed in 2016.

For approximately three months, contractors had no forum (and therefore, no remedy) for protests of civilian task orders valued over $10 million. That changed on December 14, 2016, when the Government Accountability Office Civilian Task and Delivery Order Protest Authority Act of 2016 became law. See Public Law No. 114-779 (Dec. 14, 2016). This law restored GAO’s civilian task order protest jurisdiction to its pre-October 1, 2016 scope.

Less than two weeks later, the scope of GAO’s jurisdiction over task order protests changed yet again. On December 23, 2016, the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act became law. See Public Law No. 114-328 (Dec. 23, 2016). Although major changes aimed at limiting federal bid protests had been under discussion, most of the limiting provisions were not adopted. The 2017 NDAA did not change the $10 million threshold for protests of civilian agency task order awards. But it increased GAO’s jurisdictional threshold for military agency task order protests from $10 million to $25 million. Protests asserting that a task order award was improper because it exceeded the scope, the performance period, or the maximum value of the underlying contract can be filed without regard to the threshold.

HP gets caught in a jurisdictional trap

Like many government contractors, HP Enterprise Services was ensnared in these changes. On July 11, 2016, HP protested the award of a task order to CACI, Inc. The task order was issued by GSA, but it required the delivery of IT support services to DoD. GSA took corrective action soon thereafter, and the protest was dismissed as academic.

The 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, Pub. L. No. 114-328 (Dec. 23, 2016), introduces major changes to the Defense Department healthcare program known as TRICARE. By this time next year, we’ll see a new program to contain the cost of prescription drugs at retail pharmacies, contractual incentives for improving the quality of healthcare and…

The Supreme Court’s June 2016 decision in Kingdomware Techs., Inc. v. United States, No. 14-916 (June 16, 2016), may significantly impact the meaning of the term “government contract” for years to come.

The case centered on a project for the Department of Veteran Affairs. When VA continually fell behind in achieving its three percent goal for contracting with service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, Congress enacted the Veterans Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act of 2006. See 38 U.S.C. §§ 8127 & 8128. The Act includes a mandatory set-aside provision that requires competition to be restricted to veteran-owned small businesses if the government contracting officer reasonably expects that at least two such businesses will submit offers and that the “award can be made at a fair and reasonable price that offers best value to the United States.” This is an iteration of the well-known “Rule of Two.”

When it published regulations implementing this statutory requirement, VA took the position that the set-aside requirements in § 8127 “do not apply to [Federal Supply Schedule] task or delivery orders.”  74 Fed. Reg. 64619, 64624 (2009). The Kingdomware case posed a direct challenge to this interpretation.

Contract Disputes Act claims are subject to a six-year statute of limitations. While the math involved in calculating when that limitations period runs seems easy, determining when a CDA claim accrued is not always so simple. FAR 33.201 defines “accrual of a claim” as the date when the party with the claim knew or should have known all of the events that “fix the alleged liability” of the other party. But the Federal Circuit’s decision in Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc. v. Murphy, No. 2015-1148 (Fed. Cir. May 18, 2016) [PDF], shows that the date of accrual is not always clear.

GAO has announced a series of proposed amendments to its bid protest regulations. The changes are prompted by the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2014, one section of which required GAO to establish an electronic filing system. But the amendments are not limited to implementing electronic filing, and many of the other proposed adjustments warrant attention.

Electronic filing and new filing fee

Many of the proposed amendments address GAO’s proposed “Electronic Protest Docketing System,” or EPDS. Once adopted, EPDS will be the sole means for filing a bid protest at GAO, replacing the “protests@gao.gov” email method. Protests containing classified information will not use EPDS.

Some protest-related communications will also be required to be submitted through EPDS under the proposed amendment to Section 21.3(a). GAO has stated that it will post instructions on its website as to which communications should be submitted through EPDS and which will continue to be exchanged through email. While this guidance is not yet available, the text of the proposed rule does not suggest a substantive change in existing practice, under which certain communications are distributed to all parties (and GAO, but parties may also have separate contact about some protest-related issues.

A filing fee in the amount of $350—the first of its kind at GAO—will be imposed to cover the costs of supporting EPDS. The fee is to be paid by the protester upon initiating the protest. GAO has not addressed how the filing fee will be paid, a potentially important consideration in light of GAO’s short and strictly enforced filing deadlines.

Other important amendments

GAO’s proposed amendments include substantive changes unrelated to EPDS. Many, but not all, of these changes are intended to formally adopt rules announced in GAO’s decisions. Here are some of the signifcant changes.

Contractors supplying goods or services to the government through Federal Supply Schedules should expect increased scrutiny of their pricing in the coming months. In a July 2015 report [pdf], GAO released the results of a year-long performance audit analyzing government competition and pricing practices for FSS orders. The report highlights inconsistencies across FSS procurements, including purchasers’ frequent failure to ask FSS contractors for discounts to list prices (required by FAR 8.405-4 for orders exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold).

The main issues identified in the GAO report are nothing new. GSA is already taking steps to address the inconsistent usage of the FSS system among buyers. In March 2015, GSA proposed a rule that would impose a new transactional data reporting requirement upon FSS vendors. (For an explanation of current Price Reduction Clause requirements, take a look at our discussion here.) The proposed rule is aimed at increasing transparency in pricing across government procurements, with the end goal of an overall reduction in prices paid for FSS supplies and services. While the rule is still pending, a number of the nearly three dozen comments submitted during the comment period reveal considerable opposition to the proposed changes. Regardless of whether the proposed rule is enacted, contractors can prepare to effectively contract through supply schedules in a few simple ways.