FedEx was the U.S. Postal Service’s largest contractor in fiscal year 2012 in a list of the agency’s Top 150 suppliers compiled and released today by Husch Blackwell’s Postal Service Contracting practice group. This marks a decade of Federal Express Corporation holding the No. 1 spot on the list. The next largest USPS supplier is military mail shipper Kalitta Air. Six of the Postal Service’s top ten suppliers served the agency’s transportation needs. The list is compiled annually by David P. Hendel, a partner in the firm whose government contracts practice focuses on Postal Service contracting matters.

Contractors are entitled to recover consultant and attorney costs reasonably incurred in preparing, pricing, and negotiating a change order under federal government contracts, including U.S. Postal Service contracts. That’s the holding in Tip Top Constr., Inc. v. Donahoe, 695 F.3d 1276 (Fed. Cir. 2012). The court overturned a Postal Service Board of Contract Appeals decision that had erroneously limited the contractor’s recovery of these costs. End result: if an agency changes your contract (whether by unilateral direction or constructive change), your request for an equitable price adjustment may include reasonable consultant and attorney costs.

Husch Blackwell’s Postal Service Contracting practice group today released its list of the top 10 U.S. Postal Service suppliers for fiscal year 2011. For the ninth straight year FedEx claimed the No. 1 spot. Another air carrier, Kalitta Air, Inc., which transports military mail bound for Iraq and Afghanistan, claimed the second spot. The list is compiled by David P. Hendel, a partner in the firm who has served clients’ postal contracting needs for 30 years.