On November 18, 2021, President Biden signed an executive order, “Executive Order on Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers Under Service Contracts” requiring, in most instances, that federal Service contracts and solicitations for such contracts include a clause which mandates that the awardee (and its subcontractors) of a follow-on Service contract for “same or similar
On November 16, 2021, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its Annual Report on Bid Protests for Fiscal Year 2021. While GAO received slightly fewer protests in FY2021 than in the year prior, the overall protest “Effectiveness Rate”—meaning the percentage of cases in which the protester received relief, such as voluntary corrective action or a GAO sustain—remained relatively constant, at 48% (the rate has ranged from 44% to 51% in each of the past five years).
GAO’s Annual Report also provides a helpful summary of the most common grounds for sustained protests in the prior year. In FY2021, those grounds were as follows: (1) unreasonable technical evaluation; (2) flawed discussions; (3) unreasonable cost or price evaluation; and (4) unequal treatment. The inclusion of “flawed discussions” on the list is notable—it is the first time in recent history that discussions-based protest arguments have proven so successful. Though firm conclusions are difficult to draw based upon a single year’s data, this may indicate that GAO is taking a closer look—and holding agencies to a higher standard—at the propriety and fairness of discussions.
Continue Reading GAO Releases Annual Bid Protest Report to Congress for FY 2021, Identifies New “Top Ground” for Sustains
On November 4, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) released its much-anticipated COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) requiring employers with 100 or more employees to ensure that their employees are either vaccinated by January 4, 2022, or submit to weekly testing. According to OSHA, employees who are unvaccinated face a “grave danger” from COVID-19, including the more contagious Delta variant. The ETS notes that COVID-19 is highly transmissible—particularly in workplaces where multiple people interact throughout the day often for extended periods of time—and exposure to COVID-19 can result in death or illness, with some individuals experiencing long-term health complications. OSHA has determined that vaccination is the most effective way to protect these employees.
The ETS will take effect immediately upon publication in the Federal Register, which is scheduled for November 5, 2021. The ETS will apply in those states where OSHA is responsible for regulating workplace safety and health. Per OSHA regulations, states that have their own OSHA-approved occupational safety and health plans will have 15 days to notify OSHA of the action they will take and 30 days to adopt the ETS or promulgate standards that OSHA considers at least as effective as its ETS.
The OSHA ETS is part of a sweeping policy of the Biden Administration to get more American workers vaccinated. In addition to this ETS, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released today a Vaccination Interim Final Rule (“IFR”) requiring workers at healthcare facilities participating in Medicare or Medicaid to be fully vaccinated. Both the OSHA and CMS actions follow on the heels of Executive Order 14042 mandating that certain federal contractors and subcontractors require their covered employees to receive vaccinations against COVID-19, with limited exceptions for those who cannot be vaccinated for legally-protected reasons, and OSHA’s June 10, 2021 ETS directed toward protecting healthcare workers in particular from COVID-19. Our previous alert on OSHA’s June 10, 2021 ETS is available here, and our alerts regarding Executive Order 14042 are available here. OSHA excludes from coverage under the ETS those employers who are subject to the CMS rule or the Executive Order 14042 mandate.
Although the ETS is very detailed—490 pages in all—the key takeaways and deadlines for compliance are below.
Continue Reading OSHA Publishes Vaccine Requirements for Employers with 100 or More Employees
In Aero Spray, Inc. d/b/a Dauntless Air v. U.S., the U.S. Court of Federal Claims dismissed a protest filed by Aero Spray, an awardee of an indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (“IDIQ”) contract for Department of the Interior plane-based firefighting services. Aero Spray’s protest challenged the agency’s award of IDIQ contracts to two other companies, alleging that their planes did not comply with the solicitation’s required firefighting configuration.
Aero Spray argued that despite being an awardee itself, it had standing to protest the additional awards because they increased competition for awards of future task orders competed amongst the IDIQ holders, to Aero Spray’s detriment. The Court disagreed, holding that Aero Spray’s protest related to the award of the IDIQ contracts—not future task orders—and that Aero Spray “already . . . won the only contract award to which it could possibly be entitled.” In so holding, the Court expressly agreed with the Government Accountability Office, which has held that that “an awardee, by definition, is not an actual or prospective offeror,” and that “[d]ue to the nature of IDIQ contracts, . . . an awardee has no legally cognizable expectation of receiving future task orders” but only a “guaranteed a minimum quantity of orders . . . and a fair opportunity to compete for future task orders.” Aegis Def. Servs., LLC, B-412755, Mar. 25, 2016, 2016 CPD ¶ 98. The Court also rejected the reasoning in National Air Cargo Group, Inc. v. U.S., 126 Fed. Cl. 281 (2016), which allowed an awardee to protest additional IDIQ awards due to the potential impact on future task order competitions, and distinguished PAE-Parsons Global Logistics Services., LLC v. U.S., 145 Fed. Cl. 194 (2019), and Sirius Federal, LLC v. U.S., 153 Fed. Cl. 410 (2021), which noted that an awardee can have standing to challenge other awards under the same procurement where those other awards are distinct from (e.g., more valuable than) the awardee’s own.
Continue Reading Court of Federal Claims Refuses to Hear Protest from IDIQ Awardee
Yesterday, President Biden issued a Fact Sheet entitled Biden Administration Efforts to Address Bottlenecks at Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Moving Goods from Ship to Shelf to help address the “delays and congestion” across the transportation supply chain. As has been widely reported in recent weeks and months, the global supply chain has
This afternoon, the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force issued its Guidance regarding COVID-19 Workplace Safety: Guidance for Federal Contractors and Subcontractors (at all tiers), pursuant to President Biden’s September 9, 2020 Executive Order. The 14-page Guidance addresses the following topics:
In this bullet point Olivia Lynch, Amy O’Sullivan, Michael Samuels, and Zachary Schroeder discuss a proposed Department of Defense rule requiring contracting officers to consider an offeror’s past performance as a first-tier subcontractor or individual partner of a joint venture under construction and/or architect-engineer services contracts.
On May 20, 2021, the FAR Council issued a proposed Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) rule on post-award debriefings that largely codifies—and in a number of ways bolsters—the existing enhanced post-award debriefing rules established by the Department of Defense’s (DoD) March 22, 2018 Class Deviation on Enhanced Postaward Debriefing Rights. The proposed rule requires
This week’s episode covers suspension and debarment, False Claims Act developments, and oversight relating to the pandemic response, and is hosted by partner Peter Eyre and associate Gabby Trujillo. Crowell & Moring’s “Fastest 5 Minutes” is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government
In BGT Holdings, Inv. v. United States, No. 1:18-cv-00178-PEC (Fed. Cir. Dec. 23, 2020), the Federal Circuit held that FAR 52.245-1 requires the Government to consider an equitable adjustment when it fails to provide Government-furnished equipment (GFE) required by the contract. The contract in question required the Government to furnish equipment for the construction