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Federal agencies have closely guarded their authority to suspend and debar contractors that they determine are not “presently responsible.” Beyond the procedural safeguards set forth in FAR Subpart 9.4, the only practical limit on agency discretion in making suspension and debarment determinations can be found in the Interagency Committee on Debarment and Suspension, which provides a method for determining which agency should take the lead in a particular suspension or debarment matter.

This system may be headed for a fundamental change. Representative Darrell Issa, Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has circulated draft legislation entitled the “Stop Unworthy Spending Act”—the “SUSPEND Act [pdf].” As written, the SUSPEND Act would terminate the authority of all civilian agencies to make their own suspension and debarment determinations.  Instead, this authority would be consolidated into a single entity—the Board of Civilian Suspension and Debarment—which would reside in the General Services Administration.

The Department of Labor has announced that new regulations addressing Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers Under Service Contracts will go into effect on January 18, 2013. (See 77 Fed. Reg. 75780 (Dec. 21, 2012) [pdf].) DOL issued the final regulations in August 2012 after receiving comments on proposed rules published in June. Our comments on the impact of the proposed rules appear here.

The DOL’s action means that all Service Contract Act contracts over the simplified acquisition threshold awarded on or after January 18, 2013 will include a contract clause requiring prime contractors and subcontractors to make good faith offers of employment to SCA-covered employees employed under the predecessor contract.

Here are some of the highlights of the new regulations and the new contract clause:

The Veterans Administration can freely acquire goods and services from GSA’s Federal Supply Schedule, and it is not required to set-aside such procurements for veteran-owned small businesses (VOSBs) or service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSBs). Under the Veterans Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act of 2006, the VA is required to set aside procurements for…

Contributed by Husch Blackwell Associate Thomas J. Rath

It makes sense to require contractors seeking reimbursement of costs they incur in the performance of a government contract to show that the costs were reasonable. According to the latest decision addressing KBR’s effort to recoup costs incurred to support the United States military in Iraq, the rule is no different for work performed in a warzone. Without additional proof of reasonableness, the Court of Federal Claims concluded that $37 million may be too much for a dining facility needed to feed and protect 6,000 American soldiers. See Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc. v. United States, Nos. 09-428C & 09-578C (Fed. Cl. Sept. 27, 2012).

The decision arises from KBR’s claims for costs incurred to construct and operate a reinforced concrete dining facility needed to feed and protect 6,000 soldiers in Mosul, Iraq. Though KBR’s contract was awarded on a cost-reimbursement basis, KBR awarded a fixed-price subcontract for the work to ABC International Group. Army representatives urged KBR to begin work on the new facility quickly, citing the need for “force protection.” Responding to this pressure, KBR accepted a proposal from ABC that doubled the expected monthly cost of labor without seeking competing bids. KBR concluded the increase was reasonable because the work would be conducted amid “violence and the beheading of hostages by terrorists [which] caused a drastic increase in the cost of labor and a severe shortage of available staff.” By the end of the contract, the government asserted that KBR had paid over $12 million more to ABC for labor than it should have.

Under a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, contractors may face False Claims Act liability for the submission of false estimates, including fraudulent underbidding. In United States ex rel. Hooper v. Lockheed Martin Corporation, No. 11-55278 (9th Cir. Aug. 2, 2012) [pdf], the Ninth Circuit joined the First and Fourth Circuits in holding that “false estimates, defined to include fraudulent underbidding in which the bid is not what the defendant actually intends to charge, can be a source of liability under the FCA.”

In this case, a former Lockheed Martin employee alleged that the company intentionally underbid its proposal for the Air Force’s Range Standardization and Automation IIA (“RSA IIA”) program. Lockheed was awarded the RSA IIA contract in 1995, and since then it has been paid more than $900 million on a cost-reimbursement plus award fee basis. Hooper, the qui tam relator and former Lockheed employee, alleged that the employees preparing Lockheed’s RSA IIA bid were told to “lower their estimates without regard to actual costs.”

The SBA has released its Small Business Procurement Scorecards for 2011, and for the second year in a row the results paint a grim picture. In 2011 [pdf], small businesses were awarded an even smaller share of federal contract dollars than they received in 2010—$6.4 billion smaller. Prime contract awards to small businesses in 2011 totaled $91.5 billion, or 21.65 percent of federal agency contract expenditures. The previous year [pdf], small businesses were awarded 22.66 percent of all federal prime contracts, or $97.9 billion. It’s official: federal agencies have failed once again to meet the 23 percent government-wide goal for prime contract awards to small business concerns set by the Small Business Act.

The June 26, 2012 decision in Agility Defense & Government Services, Inc. v. United States Department of Defense, No. 11-4111 (N.D. Ala. June 26, 2012) [pdf] reflects an important limitation on the government’s authority to suspend contractors simply because they are affiliated with companies accused of wrongdoing.

Agility Defense and Government Services, Inc. and Agility International, Inc. filed suit seeking to undo their suspensions after spending 31 months on the Excluded Parties List and being unable to convince the Defense Logistics Agency to lift the suspensions. DLA suspended the two companies not because they had engaged in wrongdoing, but because they were indirect affiliates of their ultimate parent company, Public Warehousing Company, K.S.C. The parent company was under indictment for defrauding the government of over $6 billion on food supply contracts in the Middle East. ADGSI and Agility had proposed a management buyout and other measures designed to remove PWC’s ability to control them and to assure their compliance with federal procurement laws. DLA nevertheless refused to lift the suspension.

Jurisdictional issues arising from disputes about wages and benefits required by federal minimum wage statutes like the Davis-Bacon Act and the Service Contract Act can be tricky. In some cases, the Department of Labor has exclusive power to resolve such disputes. In others, the dispute must be resolved by the contracting officer, with appeal rights available under the Contract Disputes Act. The ASBCA’s recent decision in Caddell Constr. Co., ASBCA No. 57831 (May 21, 2012) [pdf] helps determine which cases fall on either side of this line.

The case arose from an Air Force contract to build a new commissary and related site work at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The solicitation included two wage determinations—one for highway construction with low wage rates and another for building construction with much higher wage rates. Prior to bid, the agency told bidders to use the lower highway construction wage determination. During performance, the contracting officer required the contractor to pay wages according to the higher wage determination for building construction.

The contractor submitted a claim in accordance with the Contract Disputes Act. At the Board, the government moved to dismiss the appeal, arguing that such labor disputes are reserved to the Department of Labor. The Board denied the motion, holding that the Board has jurisdiction to hear disputes over wage issues “where there was an alleged mistake (mutual or unilateral) as to the applicability of the Davis-Bacon Act to appellant’s employees.” The Board concluded that it had jurisdiction to hear the contractor’s claim to recover additional wages paid to employees as a result of faulty wage rate information provided to bidders before submission of bids.

But why is this important?