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Crowell & Moring government contracts attorneys provide bi-weekly summaries of hot government contracts issues in our podcast, “The Fastest Five Minutes,” co-hosted by partners Peter Eyre and David Robbins, and featuring guest hosts from across the Firm.

This format arose from client requests for non-written materials to help them stay up-to-date on the latest issues affecting our profession. The most recent podcast, available here, streams on the firm website, iTunes, SoundCloud, and PodBean, and allows our clients and friends in the industry a variety of platforms to access this material easily.

For those who might wish to see what a podcast “looks like” before deciding whether to tune in, here is a transcription of our September 16, 2016 episode.Continue Reading About the Fastest-Five-Minutes: The Substance of Our Podcast

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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, with the latest edition hosted by Partners David Robbins and Peter Eyre and including updates on counterfeit parts, NIST digital authentication guidelines, …

Crowell & Moring LLP is pleased to release its “2016 Litigation & Regulatory Forecasts: What Corporate Counsel Need to Know for the Coming Year.” The reports examine the trends and developments that will impact government contractors and other corporations in the coming year—from the last year of the Obama administration to how corporate litigation strategy is transforming from the inside out. This year will bring remarkable change for companies, as market disruptions and the speed of innovation transform industries like never before, and the litigation and regulatory environments in which they operate are keeping pace.
Continue Reading Crowell & Moring’s 2016 Litigation & Regulatory Forecasts: What Corporate Counsel Need to Know for the Coming Year

On December 3, 2013, the Department of Defense (“DoD”) published the second part of a trio of promised regulations regarding efforts contractors must take to prevent the entry of counterfeit electronics into the DoD supply chain.  We previously discussed the first proposed rule here, published on May 16, 2013, which was supposed to provide the foundation for detection and avoidance of counterfeit parts.  The third proposed rule has still not been released, but will address reporting requirements for identified counterfeit parts.

The second proposed rule, by its own admission, “does not directly implement any specific aspect of section 818,” the statute requiring DoD to assess its policies and systems for the detection of counterfeit electronic parts (see our previous blog post here for more details).  Instead, it continues DoD’s focus on contractor’s purchasing systems to stem the impact of counterfeit parts by amending the regulations concerning the use of higher-level quality systems (such as ISO, ASQ, and SAE standards).  According to the proposed rule, its purpose is “to ensure that agencies assess the risk of nonconforming items when determining whether higher-level quality standards should be used by the Government and relied on by contractors.” 
Continue Reading New Proposed Rule Targeted at Counterfeit Parts

The Department of Defense has recently issued a proposed rule to combat the counterfeit electronic parts, summarized here. Trying to preempt justifiable concerns on the part of small businesses at all tiers of the government contracts supply chain, DOD indicated that “the impact should be negligible as long as the small entity is not supplying counterfeit parts to the prime contractor.” That really understates the nature and scope of the impact to subcontractors and suppliers under this proposal. The proposed rule would require prime contractors (that are subject to the Cost Accounting Standards) to implement an entirely new avoidance and detection scheme within their purchasing system, which would undoubtedly impact subcontractors and suppliers all the way down the supply chain – big and small, counterfeiters and non-counterfeiters alike.

I attended the public meeting on this proposed rule on June 28, where these concerns were aired to representatives of the Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP) office and the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA). What follows is an analysis of some of the key points of concern for small businesses and suppliers coming from the meeting and the proposed rule.


Continue Reading What Subcontractors, Small Businesses and Suppliers Can Expect Under DOD’s Proposed Counterfeit Parts Rule

Following the release of GAO and Congressional reports detailing counterfeit electronic parts in the Department of Defense (“DoD”) supply chain, Congress and the executive branch have made DoD supply chain security a priority. As part of the Government’s comprehensive approach to improving supply chain security for DoD, previously blogged about here and here, Congress passed legislation containing new reporting requirements for contractors who discover counterfeit or suspected counterfeit parts. The Government – Industry Data Exchange Program, or “GIDEP,” is a joint U.S. – Canadian program, funded by both governments, is currently DoD’s designated reporting organization for counterfeit parts.
Continue Reading Reporting Counterfeit Parts to GIDEP Under the Proposed DoD Rule

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On May 16, 2013, the Department of Defense (“DoD”) published long awaited proposed regulations regarding efforts contractors must take to prevent the entry of counterfeit electronics into the DoD supply chain. As previously discussed on this blog, Section 818 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2012 required DoD to revise its acquisition regulations…