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No Buyer's Remorse – ASBCA Orders Air Force to Pay for What It Got

Client Alert | 1 min read | 10.09.15

In Honeywell Int'l, Inc. (Sept. 24, 2015), the ASBCA held that the Air Force must pay for two solar arrays that the contractor (represented by C&M) provided under an Energy Savings Performance Contract, even though the Board had earlier determined that certain of the contract's payment terms were "invalid." In finding the Air Force liable under an implied-in-fact contract theory, the Board rejected arguments that the Air Force had never intended to acquire the solar arrays and that the contracting officers had lacked authority to bind the government, explaining that the Air Force, simply by refusing to accept them, could not escape liability for the arrays that were "supplied … as designed, completed on time, and installed as required."


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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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