Attribution of Affiliate Past Performance Improper Without Proposed Meaningful Involvement in Performance
Client Alert | 1 min read | 12.11.17
In a recent protest decision, Language Select LLP, dba United Language Group (released Dec. 1, 2017), GAO sustained a protest of a Federal Supply Schedule blanket purchase agreement by the Social Security Administration for worldwide telephone interpreter services because the agency improperly credited the awardee with the experience and past performance of a subsidiary division based on identification of the division on the awardee’s stationary and in its FSS contract, even though the awardee’s proposal made no mention of the division’s resources nor any meaningful involvement in the awardee’s performance under the BPA, holding that common management is insufficient to support awarding past performance credit for an affiliate. GAO also sustained on the bases that the agency held unequal discussions with the awardee and the agency failed to provide (and document) a rational basis for discounting the significance of the awardee’s recent termination for cause on a similar contract.
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Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.12.26
DOJ Guidance Backs Away From Disparate Impact Liability
On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a formal opinion concluding that the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) existing interpretations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) disparate-impact liability, including the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), are unconstitutional. According to the opinion, EEOC’s prior interpretations contemplate liability based on disproportionately adverse effects alone, without regard to an employer’s likely intent, rather than treating disparate impact as an evidentiary mechanism to “smoke out” intentional discrimination. DOJ found that this approach functions as a “qualified racial-proportionality mandate” that places “a racial thumb on the scales, often requiring employers to evaluate the racial outcomes of their policies, and to make decisions based on (because of) those racial outcomes.” The opinion fulfills one mandate of Executive Order 14281, which rejected disparate-impact liability insofar as it “creates a near insurmountable presumption that unlawful discrimination exists wherever there are any differences in outcomes among different [demographic groups].”
Client Alert | 4 min read | 06.12.26
Auto Dealers: The FTC Is Back in the Driver’s Seat — Warning Letters Signal Renewed Federal Scrutiny
Client Alert | 13 min read | 06.12.26
Client Alert | 4 min read | 06.12.26
