Approved: E-Signatures for CDA Claim Certifications Receive the ASBCA’s Stamp of Approval
Client Alert | 1 min read | 10.30.19
In URS Federal Services, Inc., ASBCA 61443 (October 3, 2019), the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals addressed whether a contractor’s digital signature complied with the CDA’s claim certification requirements. The signature in question was electronically affixed to the claim document—along with a digital certificate—using software that required the signer to input a unique password and user identification before signing. The government argued that one “cannot trust the [digital] certificate to prove the identity of the person who applied it,” because there was no “suitable ID” to prove the signer’s identity. While noting that it had previously found typed but unsigned names to be insufficient, the Board rejected the government’s argument, because the digital signature was “discrete” and “verifiable” in accordance with the CDA’s requirements. The Board reasoned that “[n]o ink signature, on its face, includes any way for the reader to know who executed it unless that reader already possesses an intimate familiarity with the certifier’s handwriting” and declined to “impose draconian demands on digital signatures, not required to be met for their ink counterparts.”
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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
