Photo of Monica DiFonzo Sterling

Monica DiFonzo Sterling is a counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Crowell & Moring, where she is a member of the firm’s Government Contracts Group.

Monica has an active government contracts counseling and litigation practice focusing on False Claims Act investigations, bid protests, federal regulatory and ethics compliance, and government contracts disputes before the Government Accountability Office and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

In a February 11, 2022 decision, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (Court) dismissed for lack of interested party status a post-award protest filed by Colsa Corp. (Colsa) in which it challenged the status eligibility of other offerors.

In September 2018, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) issued a solicitation seeking a single contractor to provide

This week’s episode covers DoD’s Software Modernization Strategy Memorandum, proposed updates to the DoD’s Mentor-Protégé Program, a GAO report examining the current status of the DoD artificial intelligence weapon systems capabilities, and the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee report on Zero Trust and Trusted Identity Management, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Monica Sterling.

This week’s episode covers increased minimum wage for certain federal contract workers, a protest decision involving proposal misrepresentation, cybersecurity and data safeguarding updates from DOD and NIST, and highlights from the Defense Innovation Unit Annual Report, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Monica Sterling. Crowell & Moring’s “Fastest 5 Minutes” is a biweekly podcast

This week’s episode covers an update on the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program, a GAO report on DHS’ controls to protect personally identifiable information, a Federal Circuit decision regarding prejudice in the bid protest context, and highlights from the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2022, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Monica Sterling. Crowell

This week’s episode covers changes to its Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program, replacement of the FAR concept of “commercial item” with “commercial product’’ and “commercial service,” updates to the DOJ approach to corporate cooperation credit, developments about the Federal Contractor Vaccine Mandate, and a discussion of a bid protest decision relating to standing and IDIQ

This week’s episode covers the latest on the COVID vaccine requirement for contractors, cybersecurity updates, the DoD Climate Adaptation Plan, and a class deviation relating to certified cost or pricing data, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Monica Sterling. Crowell & Moring’s “Fastest 5 Minutes” is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary

This week’s episode covers a bid protest relating to a Procurement Integrity Act matter, government reports about COVID contracting, and final rules relating to small businesses and subcontracting, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Monica Sterling. Crowell & Moring’s “Fastest 5 Minutes” is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government

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 July 21, 2021, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced that it is seeking public comment on a proposed rule which would require federal contractors to pay a $15.00 per hour minimum wage by January 30, 2022. The rule would implement President Biden’s April 27, 2021 Executive Order 14026 (“EO 14026”), which mandated an increase

This week’s episode covers a notice of proposed rulemaking relating to increasing the minimum wage for certain employees of government contractors, a new Executive Order focused on promoting competition, reporting service contract hours in SAM, and a DOD request seeking information from contractors about ESG matters, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Monica Sterling.