Government Contracting Resources » CDA

Requirements Type Contracts, What you need to Know

tdiguiseppe — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:14:46 +0000

A good short article on the uniqueness of a Requirements contract. But what is most interesting is how the article demonstrates it is important to review and view the contract clauses and requirements as a whole, not individuality to fully understand their potential impact on your as contractor.

Click here for a copy of the article

Contractor Exposure for False Claims Act Violations During Contract Disputes Increases

tdiguiseppe — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:14:56 +0000

The attached article by Hal Perlof, Esq., of Husch Blackwell provides important information on how a recent court ruling can significantly increase contractor risks for False Claims Act (“FCA”) violations during contract disputes.

Mr. Perlof also provides a very good description of what criteria has to be met before bringing an FCA violation claim and how the new ruling changes the game.

A must keep article for your business files.

Click here for a copy of the article

Non-Discrimination in Compensation – Compensation data collection Tool

tdiguiseppe — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:26:29 +0000

The Obama’s administration early announcement that they will be proposing a new data collection rule related to “Compensation Discrimination”. This is another attempt on the part of DOL and the Obama’s administration to force contractors to report data on employee and management compensation under the guise of identifying and preventing compensation discrimination. In reality it is a back door effort to force government contractor to either become unionized or to pay wage scales dictated by the union. If also smacks of the heavy handed approach
to government dictating how business are to pay their employees. This is no different than DOL efforts to tell Boeing where it can set up business operations and that any effort to operate in Right to Work states will be met with lawsuits from DOL.

You have an opportunity to comment, please use it. However, the only real way to prevent this proposed rule from becoming finalized it to contact your Congressional Representative loudly and
often. Because this is another attempt to kill capitalization by the Obama administration.

Click here for a copy of the Fed Reg announcing this proposed rule

Understanding the Truth in Negotiation Act (TINA)

tdiguiseppe — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:34:35 +0000

A white paper on the Truth in Negotiation Act and what it means to you as a Government Contractor

Click here for access to the paper on TINA

Contracting with the U.S. Government

tdiguiseppe — Wed, 18 May 2011 17:25:16 +0000

A great paper by Rod Marvin, Esq., of Cohen and Mohr, on all aspects of doing business with the Federal government and how best to be successful in this market. While it is a long paper, it is a great resource to keep in your files for a reference tool on the many requirements of doing business with the government.

Click here for a copy of the White Paper

DFARS 252.242-7005 Contractor Business Systems Interim Rule

tdiguiseppe — Wed, 18 May 2011 17:15:42 +0000

This proposed DFARS is out for a third set of comments. While the attached Federal register summarizing the previous
comments on this propose rule is long, it gives some great insight into the position DoD COs will take when determining adequacy of a particular business system and what if any monies will be withheld due to identified inadequacies.

Under this rule:

A) DoD is defining contractor business systems as accounting systems, estimating systems, purchasing systems, earned value management systems (EVMS), material management and accounting systems (MMAS), and property management systems.

B) DoD is implementing compliance enforcement mechanisms in the form of a business systems clause which includes payment withholding that allows contracting officers to withhold a percentage of payments, under certain conditions, when a contractor’s business system contains significant deficiencies. Payments could be withheld on—

Interim payments under—
Cost–reimbursement contracts;
Incentive type contracts;
Time-and-materials contracts;
Labor-hour contracts;
Progress payments; and
Performance-based payments.

The Discussion and Analysis section of this Federal Register contains a insight into DoD position as it relates to the business systems listed above, the process of determining adequacy, contractor appeals, DCAA audits and follow up audits.

While this is out for comment until July 18^th, CO payment withholding due to system inadequacies is part of the future.
Understanding what that means and how to ensure your systems are not caught up in this process are important to the financial wellbeing of your company.

Tim

Click here for a copy of the Federal Register

Execusable Delays in Government Contracts

tdiguiseppe — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:42:19 +0000

A good short article on execuable delays as execptions to strict compliance with government contract T&Cs.

Click here for a copy of the article

Get ready for pricing wars

tdiguiseppe — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 16:11:52 +0000

A good article by Stan Soloway on measures being taking by DoD to increase its ability to dictate price reasonableness, and drive up the cost of doing business with the Government.

Tim

Click here for a copy of the article

New federal database is one contractors will want to avoid

tdiguiseppe — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:47:51 +0000

The Government continues to add to its long list of public disclosure of Contractor information. The Obama administration seems to have no loss of appetite when it come to disclosing as much as it can about government contractors to the general public for the purpose of proving their opinion that all contractors are crooks.

These efforts will do nothing to decrease real fraud, waste and abuse, and eveything to increase the cost of the products and services the Government buys.

Make sure you have a strong team of outside government expert lawyers in you back pocket, you will need it when all the activist groups use the inform disclosed by the Government to bring legal actions against contractors

Click here for a copy of the Washington Tech article

Proposed DFARS Rule: Withholding Payments to DoD to Contractors

tdiguiseppe — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:18:28 +0000

This proposed rule follows on the heal of an earlier article in which it was discussed how DCAA is becoming less likely to approve a Contractor’s various Systems from accounting to material management.

This proposed rule will more likely than not become a final rule after comments are received.

Contractors will need to work very hard to ensure their Systems are compliant not only to FAR and CAS but also to DCAA audit standards

Click here for a copy of the article