Contracts/Awards
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Last month, an appeals court unanimously ruled that an employee can have more than one employer for the purposes of liability. The court said that when an employee is hired by one company but works for another, the companies can be considered joint employers, and can both be sued for discrimination under a provision of the Civil Rights Act. This could have big implications for federal contractors and their subs. Terry O'Conner is the director of government contracts at the law firm Berenzweig Leonard. In this week's Legal Loop, he joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin with more on the case and its implications.
August 27, 2015 -
The Department of Defense has been working on guidelines to help its contracting officers decide whether potential noncompetitive contracts are worth their advertised prices. The new guidelines address different ways agencies can tackle situations where they don't have information available to them.
August 26, 2015 -
The Army awarded the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle to Oshkosh. The contract could be worth as much as 30 billion dollars. The award is a blow to Lockheed Martin and AM General, the other bidders on the contract. James Tinsley is managing director at Avascent. He's been following the JLTV competition since the beginning and he tells In Depth with Francis Rose that the award to Oshkosh isn't a huge surprise.
August 26, 2015 -
The Secretary of the Air Force and its Chief of Staff say a full year continuing resolution would have a significant impact on the service, particularly by slowing down or halting as many as 50 acquisition programs.
August 26, 2015 -
Geoff Livingston, president of Tenacity5 Media will discuss the state of social media with host Mark Amtower. August 24, 2015
August 24, 2015 -
The time to move from contract award to full implementation under the continuous diagnostics and mitigation (CDM) program will force agencies to decide whether to spend money on new tools or wait for those coming from DHS.
August 24, 2015 -
A proposed rule to promote small business subcontracting should be revised to ease the compliance burden on prime contractors. That's the opinion expressed in a letter the American Bar Association's Section of Public Contract Law has sent to the General Services Administration. They claim the rule should be rewritten to allow primes to inquire about a small business's size directly from subcontractors, instead of an unreliable government database. Keir Bancroft is a partner in the government contracts practice at Venable. He joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin with more on the proposed rule and the ABA's objections to it.
August 21, 2015 -
The Army plans on requesting proposals for the third iterations of its ITES and ADMC contracts by next January. New proposals will likely tackle target areas such as mobility, cloud integration and cybersecurity, but CHESS wants to make sure small businesses are in the running for contracts.
August 20, 2015 -
When it comes to evaluating the prices in bids for services, agencies have to use more than rote formulas. They've also got to consider whether a contractor is taking a unique or special approach that might provide more value. That's the gist of a protest case involving the Navy and Fluor Federal Solutions. Joe Petrillo is a partner at the law firm Petrillo and Powell. He joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to review the lessons learned from this case.
August 20, 2015 -
Altegrity, USIS’s parent company, agreed to forgo at least $30 million in fees the government owed it in return for not being held liable for alleged violations of the “dumping” or “flushing” security clearances over a 18-year period.
August 20, 2015 -
The Army is reviewing information it got from industry after its industry days for its new Information Technology Enterprise Solutions 3 Services and Army Desktop and Mobile Computing 3 Contracts. Tom Neff is project director for Computer Hardware and Enterprise Software Solutions at PEO Enterprise Information Systems. He tells In Depth with Francis Rose about the new contracts, what Army users will buy from them, what industry should do to get on them and what the Army hopes the contract will achieve.
August 19, 2015 -
The General Services Administration and the Office of Personnel Management have issued requests for proposals for two new contract vehicles. They'll create a new way for agencies to buy human resources and training services. The Human Capital and Training Solutions (H-CATS) contracts will replace an acquisition vehicle that has been in place for more than 25 years. Federal News Radio's executive editor Jason Miller joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with more on this project.
August 19, 2015 -
GSA and OPM issue two requests for proposal to create a new way for agencies to buy human resources and training services. The Human Capital and Training Solutions contracts (HCaTs) will replace an acquisition vehicle that has been in place for more than 25 years. Federal News Radio Executive Editor Jason Miller tells In Depth with Francis Rose about the latest governmentwide acquisition contract.
August 18, 2015 -
Ray Bjorklund, president of BirchGrove Consulting, discusses procurement spending in fiscal year 2015 and purchasing patterns across the federal government. August 18, 2015
August 18, 2015 -
GSA released two solicitations under the Human Capital and Training Solutions (HCaTS) program. The GWAC would provide services across three main functional categories and replace the 25-year-old Training and Management Assistance (TMA) contract.
August 18, 2015