Among the flurry of executive actions taken during his first day in office, President Trump formally established the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency Service (DOGE) via executive order (EO) on January 20, 2025, reconstituting the formerly named U.S. Digital Service that was created in 2014 by President Obama within the Office of Management and Budget.
Continue Reading Executive Order Formally Establishes U.S. DOGE Service with IT Modernization InitiativeFastest 5 Minutes: Executive Orders, DEI, Tariffs, and DOGE



This week’s special edition focuses on the “Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” Executive Order, a Presidential Memorandum entitled “America First Trade Policy,” and the latest on Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”), and is hosted by Peter Eyre, Rebecca Springer, and Alex Schaefer. 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 contracts lawyer or executive should be without.
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Brace for Impact: Final SBA Rule Changes to Recertification and Negative Controls Will Reverberate in GovCon M&A and Investment Market



On December 17, 2024, the Small Business Administration (SBA) published a final rule amending multiple aspects of all of the SBA’s small business size and status programs. Among other notable changes, SBA (1) introduced a new rule that changes the impact of a recertification as other than small or as other than the relevant small business status following a merger or acquisition, and (2) introduced a standardized set of permissible negative controls for minority shareholders in all types of small businesses, thereby significantly expanding the controls investors may have in service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSBs), women-owned small businesses (WOSBs), and participants in the SBA’s 8(a) Business Development Program.
Continue Reading Brace for Impact: Final SBA Rule Changes to Recertification and Negative Controls Will Reverberate in GovCon M&A and Investment MarketExecutive Order Underpinning SCA Contractors’ Right of First Refusal Rescinded By Trump Administration



On Inauguration Day, President Trump issued a flurry of executive orders. Among the first he signed was the Initial Rescissions Of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions Executive Order (the “Rescinding EO”). This directive rescinded 78 executive orders issued by the Biden Administration. The revocation of one in particular, Executive Order 14055 of November 18, 2021 Non-displacement of Qualified Workers Under Service Contracts (the “EO 14055”), will have an immediate impact on federal contractors performing and bidding on Service Contracts.
Continue Reading Executive Order Underpinning SCA Contractors’ Right of First Refusal Rescinded By Trump AdministrationWhat Private Employers Should Know Following President Trump’s Executive Order On Sex and Gender Identity






The first day of the Trump Administration included the issuance of 26 executive orders(“EOs”), the most in modern presidential history. Among these EOs, President Trump signed the Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government Executive Order (the “EO” or “Order”). While focused on federal policy, the Order has broad implications for private sector employers.
Continue Reading What Private Employers Should Know Following President Trump’s Executive Order On Sex and Gender IdentityDOJ Settles PPP Case Based on Economic Necessity Certification



On December 18, 2024, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas announced a $680,000 False Claims Act (FCA) settlement with Lafayette RE Management LLC (Lafayette) in connection with the real estate investment firm’s receipt of a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan at the height of the pandemic. Crowell has previously reported on DOJ’s steady pursuit of PPP cases which have resulted in FCA settlements based on issues such as affiliation (discussed here) and ineligibility under the program’s rules (discussed here), but the Lafayette settlement is the first time that the government has intervened in a case based on the economic necessity certification that all PPP borrowers had to make on the initial loan application.
Continue Reading DOJ Settles PPP Case Based on Economic Necessity CertificationTrump Targets OFCCP, DEI in Executive Order






Late on the night of January 21, 2025, President Trump signed the “Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” Executive Order (the “EO”). This EO, like a number of the executive orders issued on his first day in office, took aim at Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) programs by, among other things, broadly directing executive agencies and departments to terminate all “discriminatory and illegal preferences, mandates, policies, programs, activities, guidance, regulations, enforcement actions, consent orders, and requirements;” curtailing the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs’ (OFCCP) operational authority and directing agencies to scrutinize the DEI practices of private sector employers. Additionally, this language raises questions about the future and status of certain programs, preferences, and set-aside procurements administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, and other agencies.
Continue Reading Trump Targets OFCCP, DEI in Executive OrderFAR Council Proposes Substantial Changes to OCI Regulations



On January 15, 2025, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council issued a Proposed Rule that would implement changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI) rules as required by the 2022 Preventing Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition Act (P.L. 117-324). Comments on the Proposed Rule are due on March 17, 2025. (Note that pursuant to President Trump’s January 20, 2025 “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” Executive Order, the Proposed Rule is subject to further review, which may result in revisions and an extension of the 60-day comment period.)
Continue Reading FAR Council Proposes Substantial Changes to OCI RegulationsContractor Business Systems: Out With the Old, In With the New (Terminology)



On January 17, 2025, the Department of Defense (DoD) issued a final rule replacing the term “significant deficiency” in the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) with the term “material weakness” for use in reviews of contractor business systems. Effective immediately, a material weakness is defined as “a deficiency or combination of deficiencies in the internal control over information in contractor business systems, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of such information will not be prevented, or detected and corrected, on a timely basis. A reasonable possibility exists when the likelihood of an event occurring is probable or more than remote but less than likely.”
Continue Reading Contractor Business Systems: Out With the Old, In With the New (Terminology)Navigating Uncertainty: Implications of Trump Administration’s Approach to Infrastructure



The ongoing changes surrounding the U.S.’s position on infrastructure between the outgoing Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration is creating policy uncertainty for investors and companies in the infrastructure space. This instability may raise concerns among stakeholders that the U.S. is not an ideal place to invest because of the policy inconsistency and increases the likelihood of disputes arising from existing and potential foreign investment projects.
Continue Reading Navigating Uncertainty: Implications of Trump Administration’s Approach to Infrastructure