Just in case there's a question in anyone's mind that those convoluted, multipage intellectual property and data rights clauses in government contracts mean what they say, the U.S. Court of Federal Claim last month provided one contractor with a painful lesson that they do.
Federal procurement officials have published a proposed rule that authorizes time-and-materials and labor-hour contracts for commercial services. The rule implements amendments to the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act and benefits service contractors by shifting most of the risk to the government.
In late June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed and remanded a lower-court decision dismissing a case challenging the constitutionality of the Defense Department's price evaluation adjustment program for small disadvantaged businesses (SDB).
Identity theft, as a subset of a wide-ranging debate on electronic data privacy and security, is a hot topic after recent admissions by banks, credit data aggregators and retail chains that they unintentionally had disclosed large numbers of personal financial records.
In addition to all of the pricing, competition, human resources and other pressures facing government IT contractors, the Supreme Court just added one more: new exposure to age discrimination claims filed by older workers who are harmed by employment decisions that appear to be neutral.
Two years ago, Congress gave a new IT contracting vehicle a boost by including it in the E-Government Act of 2002. Share-in-savings contracts were supposed to revolutionize government IT procurements by unleashing contractor creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.
For the past 10 years, the Federal Acquisition Regulation has required formal evaluations of contractor performance, which have become an inherent part of source selection decisions.
Last summer, the federal court of appeals ruled that vendor line item prices and a contractor's option-year pricing were confidential information and that they could be withheld under the Freedom of Information Act, because their release was likely to cause substantial harm to a contractor's competitive position.
The Defense and Civilian Agency FAR Councils issued two sets of proposed regulations in July that promise significant long-term changes in federal IT procurement, although they may have only modest immediate impact.
In the regulatory fallout from Enron, WorldCom and other business scandals, owners and officers of privately held IT companies may find reason to be thankful they missed the booming initial public offering market.
The Defense Department has published amendments to its supplement to the Federal Acquisition Regulation, known as DFAR, as part of its program to transform defense procurements. Most of the changes are marginal, but the department also is moving many regulations out of DFAR and into a procedures, guidance and information manual, or PGI, that won't have the force of law.
When the administration proposed consolidating numerous agencies into a Department of Homeland Security, proponents of procurement deregulation took advantage of the opportunity to advance their agenda in the name of speedy protection of lives and property from terrorist attack.
Changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation, published Oct. 1, affect all government contractors, particularly those without an administration staff that tracks such changes. Everyone should take heed.
This issue of Washington Technology focuses on the small-business segment of government IT procurement, so it is useful to see how fairly federal agency customers are treating small business. Unfortunately, the report is not encouraging.
Government contracts contain so much standard wording that contractors, particularly small and mid-sized contractors, sometimes conclude it's just so much boilerplate and of little significance.
On May 28, the Defense and Civilian Acquisition Counsels published a proposal to rewrite of Part 27 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Part 27, which describes government interests in patents, copyrights and technical data developed or delivered under contracts with civilian or defense agencies, is the source of more legal questions from suppliers of commercial information technology than any other part of the FAR.
Recently proposed procurement rules could dramatically increase competition for information system services under the General Services Administration's federal supply schedules and blanket purchase agreements. The new rules, proposed April 18 by the Defense and Civilian Acquisition Councils, would make it more difficult for procurement officials to limit competition for services contracts to incumbents, and may increase the opportunities for new entrants.
Reforms enacted in the mid-1990s promised faster, more efficient procurements. One documented side effect of those reforms, however, was a sharp decline in opportunities for small businesses to bid on government contracts.
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