Interim Rule Eliminates CO Pricing Review of Indirect Offset Costs

Today, DoD issued an interim rule immediately relieving contracting officers (COs) of responsibility for performing a price reasonableness analysis of the costs associated with indirect offsets when mandated by a foreign government customer under a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract. The revised rule responds to a "foreseeable trend of increasing numbers and complexity of indirect offsets" on which FMS customers insist and reflects a desire to relieve COs of the burden of performing this analysis when no DoD-appropriated funds are used and when COs have limited ability to evaluate the indirect offset effort in any event.