Federal contractors looking for the “DEI issue” in FAR 52.222-90 may be looking in the wrong place. Yes, the clause is about what Executive Order 14398 calls “racially discriminatory DEI activities.” But that’s only the starting point. The new clause also reaches subcontract flowdowns, records access, reporting obligations, bilateral modifications, suspension and debarment, and False Claims Act (FCA) risk. This isn’t just an HR issue, and it isn’t just a DEI issue. It is a contract-administration issue, a supply-chain issue, and an invoice issue all at once.

Continue Reading Everything Everywhere All at Once: The Contractor DEI Clause Hits HR, Supply Chains, Invoices, and Subcontracts

On April 7, 2026, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memorandum establishing the National Fraud Enforcement Division (“NFED”) within the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”). Announced in a corresponding DOJ press release, the NFED is the Department’s first unified litigating division dedicated exclusively to investigating and prosecuting fraud against taxpayer dollars. For the government contractor community, the creation of the NFED represents a meaningful escalation in federal fraud enforcement.

Continue Reading DOJ Stands Up a New Fraud-Fighting Division: What Government Contractors Need to Know About the National Fraud Enforcement Division

Given recent world events and their attendant economic shocks, 2026 looks to be another year of supply chain gyration. Government contractors, besides having to cope with such shocks, must add semiconductors to the list of supply chain concerns. Semiconductors, as the U.S. Government states in a new proposed rule (2026-03065 (91 FR 7223)), are the “tiny electronic devices” essential to “consumer electronics, automobiles, data centers, critical infrastructure, and virtually all military systems.” Indeed, semiconductors “power tools as simple as a power adapter and as complex as a fighter jet or a smartphone. They are also essential building blocks of the technologies that will shape our future, including artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and clean energy.”

Continue Reading Semiconductors: Another Link to Ever-Extending Curation of the Federal Supply Chain

Clear and precise recognition and treatment of intellectual property (IP) are critical in government contracting because the ownership and use of preexisting IP, so-called “Background IP,” turn on the timing of, and funding sources for, the development of the IP. Therefore, internal documentation and standardized procedures for tracking and marking IP are crucial in the event of a dispute regarding the development, use, or ownership of IP before, during, and after performance on a government contract.

Continue Reading Don’t Put Your Background IP into It: Protecting What’s Yours

A contracting officer issues a solicitation amendment on a Friday afternoon, reverses course by Friday evening and demands a revised quotation by noon on Saturday, then changes the requirements again on both Sunday and Monday with a response window of as little as one hour. The agency’s own suggested solution? Ordering a refrigerator manufactured in Turkey, not available for purchase in the United States. If this sounds like a procurement that went off the rails, the GAO agrees.

Continue Reading When “Reasonable” Means More Than a Weekend: GAO Sustains Protest Over Compressed Response Times

The biggest danger may be misreading the order—and creating new exposure in the process.

On March 26, 2026, President Trump issued an executive order (EO) titled “Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors.” Read at the headline level, the order can sound like another broad anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) pronouncement. Read as a procurement directive, however, it is something more concrete and more consequential: a command to federal agencies to begin inserting a mandatory clause into covered contracts and contract-like instruments, including subcontracts and lower-tier subcontracts, within 30 days. That shift, from messaging to mechanics, is the real story.

Continue Reading Beyond the Headlines: The Real Contractor Risks in the New DEI Executive Order

Organizations across industries are incorporating or evaluating AI to improve workflow, increase productivity, and reduce costs. The Federal Government is doing the same. The Department of Defense has taken an especially assertive approach, issuing an AI Strategy earlier this year that outlines seven “Pace-Setting Projects” to accelerate AI development and deployment in support of DoD missions.

Continue Reading Feature Comment: Flag on the Field: Artificial Intelligence and the State of Play in Federal Contracting

The Administrative False Claims Act of 2023 (AFCA), Pub. L. 118-159, § 5203, enacted December 23, 2024, substantially amended the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act (PFCRA). On March 19, 2026, the Small Business Administration (SBA) published a direct final rule conforming its regulations to those statutory changes. 91 Fed. Reg. 13217 (Mar. 19, 2026). Absent significant adverse comment, the rule becomes effective May 4, 2026. Together, the AFCA amendments and the conforming rule materially expand SBA’s enforcement reach, raise the jurisdictional threshold for administrative proceedings, extend the statute of limitations, and introduce reverse false claims liability. Contractors doing business with SBA—or whose programs touch SBA loans, grants, or set-aside contracts—should act now.

Continue Reading SBA Expands Administrative False Claims Act Enforcement: What Federal Contractors Need to Know

As we move into spring—a season for tightening processes, clearing the backlog, and getting every detail right—a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) bid protest decision delivers a timely reminder: in government contracting, a single compliance miss can be outcome determinative.

Last month, in Morrish-Wallace Construction, Inc. d/b/a Ryba Marine Construction Co., the GAO sustained a protest where the agency awarded a contract to a bidder that failed to acknowledge a material solicitation amendment. The decision is an instructive case study in why amendment acknowledgment is not just a box to check—it also is a binding legal act.

Continue Reading Spring Cleaning Your Proposals: GAO’s Latest Reminder That Compliance Is Critical

In every crisis, half the room runs in circles while the other half picks up a clipboard and starts taking stock. The Anthropic-Pentagon dispute is that crisis, and defense contractors are deciding which half they want to be in.

The short version: The government designated a FedRAMP-authorized, facility-cleared American AI company a national security supply chain threat, via social media, after the company refused to remove safety restrictions on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. Anthropic sued days later, with the Pentagon’s own officials on the record stating the designation was “ideologically driven” with “no evidence of supply chain risk.”

Continue Reading Don’t Panic! How Federal Contractors Should Navigate the Anthropic Designation