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A Rose and a Thorn: Federal Circuit Permits Contractor to Add New Claim to Pending Complaint, but Enforces Notice Provision to Bar Recovery

Client Alert | 1 min read | 02.26.15

In K-Con Building Systems Inc. v. United States, the Federal Circuit held that a contractor could amend its COFC complaint to add new, denied claims related to the appeal if the new claims either requested different remedies (e.g., additional compensation, remission of funds, non-monetary relief) or asserted legal grounds for relief that were materially different from the claims under appeal. This holding may prove helpful to contractors at the COFC who identify additional bases for recovery/remedies after filing their complaint; however, the Court also denied recovery because the contractor's two-year delay before notifying the government of the alleged "changes" failed to provide the adequate notice required by the Changes Clause, distinguishing the facts in K-Con from those in prior cases where notice provisions were not strictly enforced.

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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].”...

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