The Procurement Playbook

Join Oles Morrison at Alliance NW 2020 on March 5th in the exhibit hall.  Adam Lasky will be speaking at a breakout session on “Joint Venture Best Practices: Top 10 things every business needs to consider before partnering on a government contract.” This session will discuss best practices around the […]

Cybersecurity is not a new concern, but its attention has grown significantly in recent years due to the increasing sophistication of persistent threats to the defense base from foreign and domestic actors alike.  By some accounts, the USG loses approximately $600 billion each year to cyber-related thefts.  These concerns have been the driver for DoD’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) initiative as a necessary means for establishing a unified framework of systems, controls and standards to safeguard national security interests. 

On February 13th, James Nagle and Howard Roth will present a full day educational seminar on “Contract Compliance” at Columbia Basin NCMA’s National Education Seminar. 

What do you do when the Agency has made a mistake in the solicitation for a contract requirement or not selected your company for award of the contract?  Most contractors think of filing a protest to Government Accountability Office (GAO) or the Court of Federal Claims (COFC) and therefore do not avail themselves of the secret weapon in bid protests—an agency protest.

Smart contractors utilize agency protests which are, cheaper, quicker, not revealed to other offerors, and have little downside on pre-award issues.  While there are risks, an agency protest provides another protest weapon to gain an edge for a contractor in the fight for contracts.

After more than five years in the making, DoD, GSA, and NASA recently issued a final rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to require contractors and subcontractors to report to the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP) certain counterfeit or suspect counterfeit parts and “common items” with major or critical […]

On Halloween Day of 2019, President Trump signed Executive Order 13897, titled “Improving Federal Contractor Operations by Revoking Executive Order 13495.” (84 Fed. Reg. 59709 (Oct. 31, 2019)). This Order revoked, effective immediately, Executive Order 13495 on “Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers Under Service Contracts,” which was issued by President Obama. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued a decision holding that a bidder’s failure to “diligently pursue” its request for a debriefing rendered its protest untimely. GAO’s bid protest regulations are strict about the time in which a contractor can file a protest. If the protest is alleging improprieties in […]

On October 1, 2019, the Department of Defense (DoD) issued a final rule (DFARS 215.101-2-70) that implemented limitations on its ability to use the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) method of procurement. In a LPTA procurement, a contact is awarded to the offeror with the lowest price who submitted a […]

In Meridian Engineering Co. v. U.S., 2019 WL 4594233, Case No. 11-492C (September 23, 2019), the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (“COFC”) decided a contractor was entitled to damages for cumulative delays on a construction project with the Army Corps of Engineers (“Government” or “Army”) to include costs due to […]

Despite acknowledging that an “objective inquiry” and not “subject beliefs” is appropriate to determine the validity of a default termination, the Court of Federal Claims ruled that the government’s default termination was invalid based in part on the Contracting Officer Representative’s (COR) “hostility” towards the contractor and “history of dishonesty” […]