We want to make something clear: simply having a former government official as an employee does not mean your company can’t bid on federal contracts or needs to let that person go. The government, while it puts certain restrictions in place, doesn’t forbid government contractors from hiring former government employees, and it can be very beneficial to have employees with such experience and still perfectly ethical. What it does forbid is when the company is or even just appears to be getting some sort of unfair advantage in acquiring contracts as a result of having former government workers as employees. For example, what if the contractor hires someone who was with the procuring agency and had access to information on competitors for an upcoming solicitation? This is the sort of thing that will result in awards being lost, as one company learned.