Photo of John E. McCarthy Jr.

John E. McCarthy, Jr. is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Crowell & Moring and member of the firm's Government Contracts Group. John has spent more than thirty years litigating all forms of government contracts cases for both large and small government contractors, with a particular emphasis on bid protests. Because of John's strong engineering background, he has particular experience in technology related issues, including litigation regarding complex technology and data rights, patent and other intellectual property issues.

In an effort to boost the domestic mining industry for critical minerals, on March 31, 2022, President Biden issued Presidential Determination 2022-11, the Memorandum on Presidential Determination Pursuant to Section 303 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (“Presidential Determination”).  The Presidential Determination states that sustainable and responsible domestic mining, beneficiation, and

While there’s no harm in gathering as much information as possible before filing a protest, would-be protesters must pay careful attention to GAO’s timeliness regulations. In K&K Industries, Inc., B-420422; B-420422.2, March 7, 2022, GAO highlighted the risk of attempting to unilaterally extend a debriefing beyond the Department of Defense (DOD) enhanced debriefing window.

On February 7, 2022, the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) changes to the “surviving spouse” provision in its regulations on Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) status became effective.  SBA had issued a direct final rule covering this change, 86 FR 61670, on November 8, 2021.

In brief, SBA’s now provides for a 3-year

During December 2021, the House and Senate reached agreement on a compromise National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022.  On December 23, 2021, Congress presented S. 1605 to President Biden, which he signed on December 27, 2021.

The FY2022 NDAA contains numerous provisions relating to acquisition policy—which provide new opportunities for government contractors, will result in the imposition of new clauses or reporting requirements on government contractors, require government reporting to Congress on acquisition authorities and programs, alter processes and/or procedures to which government contractors are subject, etc.  Crowell & Moring’s Government Contracts Group discusses the most consequential changes in the FY2022 NDAA for government contractors below.
Continue Reading National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022: Acquisition Policy Changes of Which Government Contractors Should Be Aware

In Section 839 of the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress directed the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) to prepare a report evaluating the implementation of Department of Defense (“DoD”) Instruction 5010.44 relating to Intellectual Property Acquisition and Licensing, including but not limited to, DoD’s establishment of a cadre of intellectual property (“IP”) experts

On November 4, 2021, the FAR Council issued a final rule replacing the FAR definition of “commercial item” with bifurcated definitions for “commercial product’’ and “commercial service.”  The rule implements Section 836 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2019, and is also consistent with recommendations from the Section 809 Panel to implement

On October 22, 2021, the Court of Federal Claims (Court) unsealed a decision awarding contractor SecurityPoint Holdings, Inc. (SecurityPoint) over $100 million in damages for TSA’s infringement of SecurityPoint’s patent No. 6,888,460 (“the ‘460 patent”). The ‘460 patent concerns a system of trays that recycle through security screening checkpoints by use of movable carts, and

In a string of recent cases following the Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, multiple courts have held that a party submitting information to the government need not demonstrate it obtained an assurance of confidentiality from the government in order for the agency to justify withholding that information

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

In Bitmanagement Software GmbH v. United States, the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a decision by the Court of Federal Claims (COFC) that found the Navy was not liable for copyright infringement even though it was undisputed that the Navy made 429,604 copies of Bitmanagement’s BS Contact Geo software when it only paid for