BLOG: EEOC Announces New EEO-1 Pay Data Reporting Deadline
September 30, 2019 marks the newly announced deadline for employers who submit annual EEO-1 reports to report employee 2018 pay data to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC revealed the new deadline in a federal court submission last week. UPDATE: Since the original blog on this topic was published, the court issued an order confirming the September 30, 2019 deadline, and requiring the EEOC to collect a second year of data in addition to the 2018 pay information. The EEOC has also . . . Read More
BLOG: Better Late Than Never, But Never Late Is Better: Understanding FAR’s Government Control Exceptions to Late Proposals
PilieroMazza attorneys have seen a number of government contractor clients encounter the same problem: They timely emailed a proposal to a government agency, but, for reasons unknown, the proposal was delivered late or was never received by the Contracting Officer (“CO”). There, the CO normally enforces the Federal Acquisition Regulation’s (“FAR”) strict “Late is Late” policy and rejects the proposal. Fortunately, in certain circumstances, it is possible to employ the Government Control Exception to salvage allegedly late proposals; however, the Government Accountability . . . Read More
BLOG: Cybersecurity, Implied Certifications, and the False Claims Act
As I am sure many of you know and have read about already, the first False Claims Act (“FCA”) case, US Ex rel. Markus v. AeroJet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc., et al., No. 2:15-cv-2245, has been filed in the Eastern District of California by a disgruntled former Director of Cyber Security Compliance and Controls, and it survived a motion to dismiss in May of this year. When the existence of the AeroJet case is layered over the U.S. Supreme Court’s findings in Universal Health Servs., . . . Read More
BLOG: Trends in Mergers and Acquisitions
Trends in Mergers and Acquisitions“What’s market?” is an important question for the buyer and seller to ask in a merger and acquisition (M&A). Along with counsel from a skilled M&A attorney, having a basic understanding of what terms are typical in the current M&A market will help businesses that are in the market to buy or sell a business (1) better analyze the reasonableness of specific terms offered by the other side and, if an offered term is not typical, . . . Read More
BLOG: How Government Contractors Can Take Advantage of CPARS Trends to Win (and Maintain) Federal Contracts
On July 18, 2019, the Professional Services Council hosted an important event covering Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (“CPARS”) trends, their impact on contractor past performance ratings, and the consequence they have on winning federal contracts. As one of the speakers at this event, PilieroMazza’s Samuel Finnerty offered recommendations on what government contractors can do now to proactively engage and manage their CPARS ratings and position themselves for future growth. One of the most interesting trends discussed was the sharp decline . . . Read More
EEOC Announces New EEO-1 Pay Data Reporting Deadline
September 30, 2019 marks the newly announced deadline for employers who submit annual EEO-1 reports to report employee 2018 pay data to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC revealed the new deadline in a federal court submission last week. UPDATE: Since the original blog on this topic was published, the court issued an order confirming the September 30, 2019 deadline, and requiring the EEOC to collect a second year of data in addition to the 2018 pay information. The EEOC . . . Read More
BLOG: Department of Defense Sets Course on Cybersecurity Evaluation and Enforcement
On a limited budget, government contractors need to be compliant with a litany of statutes, regulations, and industry standards in order to remain competitive in the marketplace. This has become particularly true in the cybersecurity context. With no overarching federal law for cybersecurity standards or privacy protection (though the U.S. Senate is in the process of discussing a bipartisan privacy bill as they have done, unsuccessfully, in prior legislative sessions), rulemaking authorities have taken it upon themselves to create industry . . . Read More
SBA to Increase Size Standards with Inflationary Adjustment
Tomorrow, SBA will issue an interim final rule increasing the receipts-based size standards for inflation. An unpublished version of the rule is available here . The change should be effective August 17, 2019, 30 days after the scheduled publication of the rulemaking. Comments to the rule are due September 16, 2019. For government contractors whose status changes in the System for Award Management (“SAM”) from “other than small” to “small,” as a result of the inflation adjustment, SBA advises that the . . . Read More
Comments Submitted in Response to RIN 3245-AG75, Proposed Rule on Women-Owned Small Business and Economically Disadvantage Women-Owned Small Business Certification
On July 15, 2019, PilieroMazza submitted comments on RIN 3245-AG75, Proposed Rule on Women-Owned Small Business and Economically Disadvantage Women-Owned Small Business Certification.
Impact of California Consumer Privacy Act on Government Contractors and Commercial Businesses
The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) will go into effect on January 1, 2020. Similar to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), CCPA creates significant compliance challenges for government contractors and commercial businesses doing business in California, with several states following suit. Under CCPA, fines from the Attorney General for businesses that do not comply could be as high as $7,500 per violation, with CCPA also granting consumers the right to bring private action, exposing companies to actual . . . Read More