Compliance

In a recent legal update, Husch Blackwell explores new guidance from the Department of Justice on how federal antidiscrimination laws—including Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972—will be interpreted to apply to recipients of federal funding, in conjunction with Executive Order 14173 (“Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity”). While the guidance lacks the force of law, it captures the administration’s enforcement posture on what it considers to constitute “illegal DEI.”

The FAR Council issued a proposed rule that would amend the several FAR provisions and add new clauses to provide guidance on the safe handling of CUI. Public comments on the proposed rule are being accepted until March 17, 2025. The FAR Council intends to provide guidance to contractors on the requirements to mark, safeguard, disseminate, decontrol, and dispose of CUI (“CUI safeguarding”) for every executive branch agency.

Road closed signs detour traffic temporary street work orange lighted arrow and barrels

On January 14, 2025, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced the end of its general waiver of Buy America requirements for manufactured products. The new FHWA rule aligns the FHWA requirements for manufactured products incorporated into federal highway projects with the domestic content standards of the Build America, Buy America Act (BABA).

Cybersecurity-related FCA cases poised to increase as FCA enforcement ramps up

On February 7, 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that settlements and judgments under the False Claims Act exceeded $2.2 billion during the 2022 fiscal year and that the government posted its second-highest number of settlements and judgments in a single year.

The Department of Energy through the Office of Science has announced that beginning in FY 2023, all DOE funding solicitations, including the Office of Science Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) and DOE National Lab Announcements, will require applicants to submit as an appendix to proposal narratives, a “Promoting Inclusive and Equitable Research (PIER) Plan.” The purpose of the PIER Plan is to “describe the activities and strategies applicants will incorporate to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in their research projects.” According to the Office of Science’s announcement, the Office of Science will evaluate PIER Plans as “part of the merit review process,” and they “will be used to inform funding decisions.” Applications without PIER Plans will be considered “incomplete” and “will not be evaluated.”

In a speech given at NYU on September 15, 2022, DOJ Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco reviewed new and enhanced DOJ policies regarding criminal enforcement related to corporate entities. Monaco’s comments appear to signal that DOJ will be taking a significantly more aggressive posture in corporate investigations. We summarize briefly the new policy priorities below and also provide suggestions on how to contractors might manage risk and compliance issues accordingly.

Key Point

  • Federal contractors and subcontractors who filed Type 2 EEO-1 Reports for the years 2016-2020 are advised that the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) intends to release the data from such filed EEO-1 Reports unless they file written objections asserting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) objections by no later than September 19, 2022.

When Congress enacted the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 in December 2019, Congress included the Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act of 2019 (the Act). The Act, in relevant part, restricts federal contractors from requesting criminal history information from certain job applicants until after the applicant has received a conditional offer…

On November 30, 2021, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, in Kentucky v. Biden, et al., No. 3:21-cv-00055, granted a preliminary injunction limiting the enforcement of the federal vaccine mandate for some federal contractors and subcontractors. The preliminary injunction was requested by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the State of Ohio, and the State of Tennessee. As a result, the court enjoined the federal government “from enforcing the vaccine mandate for federal contractors and subcontractors in all covered contracts in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee” pending further briefing and a full resolution of the case on its merits.