Insights

Washington – January 2, 2020: Crowell & Moring elected eight lawyers to the firm’s partnership, effective January 1, 2020. The firm also promoted seven attorneys to the position of senior counsel, and 26 associates to the position of counsel. The new partners have been promoted from within the ranks of the firm’s Washington, Los Angeles, and San Francisco offices. The new partners have been promoted from across offices and practice groups, including White Collar & Regulatory Enforcement, Health Care, International Trade, Intellectual Property, Privacy & Cybersecurity, Government Contracts, Litigation, and Antitrust.

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 January 9, 2024, the FAR Council issued a proposed rule, seeking to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) in order to enhance consistency and alignment between the suspension and debarment procedures in the FAR and in the Nonprocurement Common Rule (NCR) system (contained in 2 CFR Part 180).  The FAR and NCR are two separate suspension and debarment regulatory regimes, with the former governing procurement matters and the latter governing grants, cooperative agreements, contracts of assistance, and loan guarantees.  While these suspension and debarment regimes are similar, the proposed rule would remove some differences—definitional and procedural—between the FAR and NCR.  

The Department of Defense recently issued a long-awaited final rule prohibiting DoD prime contractors from “flowing down” FAR and DFARS clauses in subcontracts for commercial products or services, unless flowdown is specified by regulation. This rule implements language, dating from the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, intended to reduce administrative burdens on DoD contractors and subcontractors by adding a prohibition on extraneous flowdowns at DFARS 252.244-7000 Subcontracts for Commercial Products or Commercial Services.

On June 2, 2023, the FAR Council issued an Interim Rule with immediate effect that prohibits the presence or use of the TikTok app on “information technology” (IT) equipment used by government contractors and contractor personnel in the performance of a contract. The interim rule mirrors the Office of Management and Budget’s guidance, which directed federal agencies to remove TikTok and successor apps made by Chinese company ByteDance Limited from federal devices (to implement the No TikTok on Government Devices Act).

Crowell & Moring is pleased to announce the next installment 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 next sessions are described below.

Please join Crowell & Moring’s Government Contracts Group as we discuss 2022 changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS). Among other topics, we will cover: revisions to the Buy America Act; new FAR requirements that certain entities disclose their use of workforce and facilities in China; proposed changes to the DFARS on noncommercial computer software; and new and proposed FAR amendments implementing changes to the Small Business Administration’s regulations.

Join Crowell & Moring’s Government Contracts and Privacy & Cybersecurity attorneys for a webinar discussion of key provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 that will impact government contractors and critical infrastructure providers.  Topics addressed in the FY2022 NDAA that will be covered in our webinar include among others: 

In the second installment of Crowell & Moring’s webinar series, our Government Contracts attorneys will discuss the impacts of the current and expected supply chain issues on federal government contractors and their compliance responsibilities. Our panelists will discuss contract clauses that may be at risk as the supply chain delays continue, including requirements for domestic preferences, prohibitions on counterfeit parts, and protecting national security interests.  This panel will also cover the expected Government enforcement of supply chain-related compliance violations, including False Claims Act liability.

This week’s episode covers a final rule updating the FAR to add Part 40 on information security and supply chain security, a notice of proposed rulemaking detailing how companies will have to comply with the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022, and a bid protest decision involving inadvertent disclosure of source selection information, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Yuan Zhou. 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 week’s episode covers an OMB memo directing agencies to advance AI governance and innovation, a bid protest involving compliance with the Trade Agreements Act, and an updated Secure Software Development Attestation Form that must be used by certain software producers and suppliers of products containing software, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Yuan Zhou. 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 week’s episode covers a Federal Circuit decision holding that an end user license agreement incorporated into another contractor’s agreement was sufficient to establish jurisdiction under the Contract Disputes Act, a new DOJ pilot program to incentivize whistleblowers to report corporate misconduct by offering monetary rewards, and a DOD Class Deviation prohibiting DoD from requiring certain defense contractors to disclose a greenhouse gas inventory or any other report on greenhouse gas emissions, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Yuan Zhou. 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.