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Protest of Private Subcontract Solicitation Has Teeth

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 02.13.13

In Orion Tech. Resources, LLC v. Los Alamos Nat'l Sec., LLC (Aug. 6, 2012), the New Mexico Court of Appeals held that, while, in a private context, an unsuccessful offeror generally has no right to complain, when the issuer made representations as to how the offers would be considered that it then violated and on which the offeror relied, there was an implied contract under the common law. Moreover, the court ruled that the offeror in appropriate circumstances could obtain injunctive relief or damages, including lost profits if it can prove it would have won the award if the stated rules had been followed.


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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].”...