Insights

Washington – June 8, 2023: Crowell & Moring has been recommended in seven practice areas in the 16th edition of the Legal 500 United States. In addition, partner Daniel R. Forman, co-chair of the firm’s Government Contracts Group, has been named to the Legal 500’s “Hall of Fame” for Government Contracts. The firm’s full rankings can be viewed here.

Washington – November 5, 2019: Crowell & Moring’s White Collar & Regulatory Enforcement Group has been named to the Global Investigation Review’s 2019 “GIR 100” list, which honors the world’s leading firms for corporate investigations. This marks the fifth consecutive year that the firm has been recognized for this honor.

Washington – February 22, 2019: Crowell & Moring LLP is pleased to announce that its Government Contracts Group has been recognized as one of Law360’s “Practice Groups of the Year” for government contracts. This is the ninth consecutive year that the group has earned this honor.

On April 22, 2024, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a Final Rule significantly revising the Uniform Guidance for grants, cooperative agreements, and other federal financial assistance.  The Final Rule (titled “OMB Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance”), and OMB’s accompanying memorandum to agencies and reference guide, state that the revisions aim to streamline and clarify the grant rules and improve management, transparency, and oversight of federal financial assistance.  Agencies must implement the Final Rule by October 1, 2024; however, agencies may apply it to federal awards as early as June 21, 2024.

On March 15, 2024, the General Services Administration (GSA) issued Acquisition Letter MV-2024-01 providing guidance to GSA contracting officers on the use of upfront payments for acquisitions of cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).  Specifically, this acquisition letter clarifies that despite statutory prohibitions against the use of “advance” payments outside of narrowly-prescribed circumstances, upfront payments for SaaS licenses do not constitute an “advance” payment subject to these restrictions when made under the following conditions:

On March 5, 2024, a federal judge in Texas struck down a federally-sponsored racial preference extended to minority groups seeking to access capital and government contracts. Nuziard v. Minority Business Development Agency (“Nuziard”). Plaintiffs, who are non-minority business owners, challenged a preference provided by the Minority Business Development Agency (“MBDA”), a bureau of the Department of Commerce, to “socially or economically disadvantaged individual[s],” defined to include African Americans, Hasidic Jews, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders. The court struck down the MBDA’s presumption that such racial minorities are socially disadvantaged, finding the preference violated the Equal Protection Clause.   Nuziard, like the recent decision by a federal court in Tennessee in Ultima Services Corp. v. U.S. Department of Agriculture (“Ultima”), follows the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Pres & Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023) (“SFFA”) and, like Ultima, advances the mission of activist organizations across the country seeking to invalidate race-based presumptions in federally funded and sponsored entitlement programs.  

Lorraine Campos,  Toni Michelle Jackson, Trina Fairley Barlow, and Meschach Rhoades will be speaking at the Corporate Counsel Women of Color's 19th Annual Career Strategies Conference.

Women Influence & Power in Law (WIPL) offers an opportunity for unprecedented exchange with women in-house and outside counsel. This unique event was created with the assistance of an advisory board comprised of high ranking women, General Counsel or direct reports to the GC, and were drawn from across the globe. These attorneys have the highest levels of expertise and experience leading legal departments and practice areas.

Crowell & Moring is pleased to announce the launch of our Government Contracts Breakfast Series. All of the sessions will be held in Northern Virginia and focus on issues most important to government contractors. Our July session is described below. 

Please join us for a unique opportunity to learn more about Government Contract Compliance from the trenches with Microsoft's Government Contract Compliance team. This program will include a robust discussion from Microsoft attorneys addressing compliance challenges, best practices, and thoughts on forecasting compliance trends in the future.

The federal government awards billions of dollars in grants annually to fund public service, support non-profits, drive research initiatives and fund programs for colleges and universities.  With the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the “Act”), the Federal Government is poised to launch $1.2 trillion into the economy, providing funding to commercial entities through federal grants over the next 5 years, which will impact the infrastructure of this country for the next generation.  Like government contracts, federal grants have their own myriad of regulatory requirements that each grant recipient must meet and which are flowed down to subrecipients and subcontractors.  

With the anticipated signing of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2018 (NDAA), our team of procurement lawyers are here to walk you through the most notable provisions. The NDAA contains several key sections for government contractors and covers a wide array of procurement issues, including:

This week's episode covers FY19 NDAA, FAR Council, and NIST news and is hosted by partners Peter Eyre and Lorraine Campos. Crowell & Moring's "Fastest 5 Minutes" is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be without.

Crowell & Moring's "Fastest 5 Minutes" is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be without. This latest edition is hosted by partners David Robbins and Lorraine Campos and includes updates on the Transactional Data Rule Pilot Program, proposed FAR amendments, and bid protests.