On January 21, 2025, President Trump issued a widely expected executive order (EO), Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity, targeting affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)...more
Effective January 16, 2025, the Small Business Administration (SBA) issued a final rule intended to close what SBA considered to be a long-standing loophole in its size recertification rules that allowed a large business to...more
1/24/2025
/ Acquisitions ,
Competition ,
Competitive Bidding ,
Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) ,
Final Rules ,
Mergers ,
Multiple Award Contracts ,
Popular ,
Recertification ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
SBA ,
Small Business
On May 9, 2024, the Supreme Court of Virginia held that a lawsuit alleging that the state government had procured a contractor's settlement of a contract dispute using economic duress and bad faith could proceed, rejecting...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has found that employees can breach their duty of loyalty to their employers and tortiously interfere with a business expectancy by competing against their employer for the...more
4/28/2023
/ Breach of Duty ,
Competition ,
Confidential Information ,
Duty of Loyalty ,
Federal Contractors ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Former Employee ,
Misappropriation ,
Solicitation ,
Subcontractors ,
Subcontracts ,
Tortious Interference
On January 31, 2023, the Department of Defense proposed amendments to the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to enshrine regulations surrounding commercial solutions openings (CSOs). The proposal would...more
2/13/2023
/ Comment Period ,
Department of Defense (DOD) ,
DFARS ,
Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) ,
Federal Contractors ,
Federal Pilot Programs ,
Federal Procurement Systems ,
General Solicitation ,
NDAA ,
Pilot Programs ,
Proposed Amendments
Chinese semiconductors are ubiquitous within the United States and its private- and public-sector supply chains. To contend with the attendant national security and economic risks (whether real or perceived), Congress...more
1/16/2023
/ Bipartisan Agreement ,
Chamber of Commerce ,
China ,
Compliance ,
Department of Defense (DOD) ,
Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) ,
Federal Contractors ,
National Security ,
NDAA ,
Popular ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Semiconductors ,
Supply Chain ,
Technology Sector ,
Trade Associations
Each month, Venable's Government Contracts Group publishes a summary of recent legal developments of interest to the government contractor community.
Regulatory Updates -
The FAR Council has proposed to amend the FAR...more
1/6/2023
/ Bid Protests ,
COFC ,
Department of Veterans Affairs ,
EDWOSB ,
Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) ,
Federal Contractors ,
Final Rules ,
GAO ,
Human Trafficking ,
NDAA ,
Public Procurement Policies ,
SBA ,
SDVOSB ,
Small Business ,
Subcontractors ,
Supply Chain ,
Women-Owned Businesses ,
WOSB
Several years after initially proposing the rule and receiving feedback from federal contractors and a prominent government contracting scholar, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council recently released a final rule...more
With little room left on the calendar, this week Congress passed, and sent to President Biden’s desk, the National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”) for Fiscal Year 2023. As we previewed in an earlier alert, Congress...more