Category Archives: Statutes and Regulations

2020 NDAA: Contractors Supplying Technical Data to Receive Protection of Data Rights During Challenges, Again

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The draft 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, if enacted, will revoke the government’s ability to exercise rights in technical data during a supplier’s challenge to the contracting officer’s decision as to the validity of the asserted “use or release restrictions” on that data. It would reinstate the previous safeguard afforded to data suppliers, allowing them to protect their valuable–and often irreplaceable–intellectual property rights unless and until the contracting officer’s decision to remove the restrictions is sustained.

Keep in mind, this is just a draft provision, as the Senate version of the 2020 NDAA doesn’t contain the provision discussed in this blog.

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SCOTUS Rules Proprietary Business Information Shielded from FOIA Disclosure

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Many government contractors are familiar with FOIA requests, or requests made by individuals under the Freedom of Information Act for release of information in the federal government’s possession.

In the recent case Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, the U.S. Supreme Court held that commercial or financial information is “confidential” and cannot be disclosed under FOIA where it is treated as private by its owner and provided to the government under an assurance of privacy.

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SCOTUS Declines to Limit Agency Power

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In a unanimous decision that read like a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Kisor v. Wilke this week. All nine justices agreed that the case should be remanded to the lower court, but they expressed dramatically different reasoning.

What it means, essentially, is that for now courts will continue to defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretation of their own regulations. For contractors facing off against agencies, it means that the agencies still have the upper hand—however, SCOTUS did try to limit it some.

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2020 NDAA to Add Cybersecurity Training, Additional SBA Annual Reporting, and Promote Workforce Development

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The draft 2020 National Defense Authorization Act includes a number of provisions that will affect government contractors, especially small business contractors, including the three provisions featured in this post.

Read on for how the 2020 draft NDAA impacts annual small business reporting by the SBA, cybersecurity training for small businesses, and evaluation of past performance to focus on workforce development.

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2020 NDAA: Subcontractors May Be Allowed to Take Non-Payment Allegations to OSDBU

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The draft 2020 National Defense Authorization Act includes a dispute process for subcontractors when the prime contractor fails to pay.

Section 831 of the draft bill would amend the Small Business Act to allow subcontractors to report nonpayment to the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization.

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2020 NDAA: Space Activities and Space Corps

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As you may be aware, the 2020 National Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 2500) recently made its way through the House Committee on Armed Services. With some space-centric NAICS codes, such as 517410 (Satellite Communications), seeing a 134%+ increase in small business participants in the last decade, how the U.S. approaches the final frontier should be on the mind of many small business government contractors.

It definitely was on the mind of the Committee on Armed Services.

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Draft 2020 NDAA Changes Mandatory DoD Debriefings and Permanently Authorizes DoD Mentor-Protégé Program

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On June 11, the House Armed Services Committee published its draft of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was updated June 19. Among other proposed sections impacting small business contractors which will be discussed in future blog posts, the draft reduces the monetary threshold for comprehensive Department of Defense debriefings and renews the DoD’s Mentor-Protégé Program.

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