Offeror's Flip-Flop On Berry Amendment Compliance Dooms Award
Client Alert | 1 min read | 03.06.06
Sidestepping the question of whether pesticide impregnation in China of U.S. domestic fabric for bed nets actually violated the Berry Amendment, GAO held in MMI-Federal Marketing Service Corp. (Feb. 8, 2006, http://www.gao.
gov/decisions/bidpro/297537.pdf), that the agency's evaluation of the awardee's proposal was unreasonable because it failed to verify the awardee could in fact impregnate the fabric at a domestic facility as required under the agency's interpretation of the Berry Amendment requirements. Although the agency -- knowing that the awardee, on another contract, had insisted that the impregnation could, by license, only occur in China -- looked beyond the awardee's certification and requested additional information concerning where it would occur, the GAO found the additional information was insufficient to confirm that the awardee had made the necessary arrangements to shift the process to a U.S. domestic facility.
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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
