New Timeliness Rule Sinks Ferry’s Protest
Client Alert | 1 min read | 06.27.07
Navigating in previously uncharted territory before the Federal Circuit, a ferry operator’s protest against award of the National Park Service’s Alcatraz Island concession contract is sunk on the shoals of a new timeliness rule that “a party who has the opportunity to object to the terms of a government solicitation containing a patent error and fails to do so prior to the close of the bidding process waives its ability to raise the same objection afterwards in a § 1491(b) action in the Court of Federal Claims.” In Blue & Gold, Fleet, L.P. v. U.S., (June 26, 2007), the court viewed the protest as a challenge to the terms of the solicitation (i.e., omission of Service Contract Act requirements) and thus affirmed the dismissal of the post-award protest as untimely on diverse theories of waiver, patent ambiguity, laches, and equitable estoppel, coupled with an analogy to the GAO timeliness rules, despite the acknowledged fact that “the jurisdictional grant of 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b) contains no time limit requiring a solicitation to be challenged before the close of bidding.”
Insights
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
