Government Contracts Blog : Government Contracts Lawyer & Attorney : Sheppard Mullin Law Firm : Bids, Licenses, Awards, Conflict of Interest.

In Teknowledge Corp. v. U.S., Fed. Cir., No. 2009-5053, 11/03/09, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the Court of Federal Claims (COFC) that software development costs were not allocable to the Government because the Government did not receive a benefit from the costs.  Earlier this year we wrote about the potential implications of the COFC's decision.
 

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With the elimination of the IR&D and B&P ceiling a decade or so ago and the recognition of “dual use” technologies as appropriate subjects of IR&D, contractors have tended to place questions relating to the allocability of IR&D on the back burner. True, the old concurrency issue remained, but allocability seemed to be relatively non-controversial. Based upon a COFC decision issued earlier this year -- and to quote Bob Dylan -- “The times they are a changin.’”
 

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In November 2002, the FAR Councils eliminated the so-called "paid cost" rule from the FAR, which had previously prevented federal prime contractors other than small businesses from recognizing incurred subcontractor costs for purposes of progress billing until "payment by cash, check, or other form of actual payment" had actually been made. See 67 Federal Register 70520 (Nov. 22, 2002). The Government form used to request progress payments, the Standard Form (SF) 1443, Request for Progress Payments, implemented the paid cost rule by requiring large contractors to identify "paid costs eligible under progress payments clause" (Line 9) and "incurred costs eligible under progress payments clause" (Line 10). See FAR 53.301-1443 (2008) (last updated in October 1982). Bizarrely, however, when the paid cost rule was eliminated in 2002, the SF 1443 was not updated to remove these two lines. Now -- a mere six years and eight months since the elimination of the paid cost rule -- the FAR Councils have finally issued a revised SF 1443, removing Lines 9 and 10 and thereby eliminating the last vestiges of the long-defunct rule. See 74 Federal Register 28430 (Jun. 15, 2009).
 

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On May 19, 2009, the Federal Circuit in Secretary of the Army v. Tecom upheld the contracting officer’s disallowance of a contractor’s legal costs and settlement expenses in a sexual harassment and retaliation action brought under Title VII. The opinion is sweeping, and appears to extend the holding in Boeing North American, Inc. v. Roche, 298 F.3d 1272 (Fed. Cir. 2002) to almost every instance in which the contractor elects to settle in lieu of litigating cases to a conclusion.
 

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On December 19, 2008 DCAA issued new guidance for audit of and reporting on internal controls that -- in two short pages of sometimes cryptic text -- (a) redefines the agency's approach to the critical concepts of "significant deficiency" and "material weakness" in internal controls and (b) establishes new criteria for auditor reports of deficiencies in large contractor internal control systems, and recommendations as to the adequacy of the contractor systems, including recommendations that the Contracting Officer pursue suspension of progress payments on reimbursement of costs. 

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Effective October 17, 2008, the Cost FAR Councils will implement revisions to the policies and procedures for contract debts under FAR Subpart 32.6.  The changes cover all contract debts to the Government resulting from contractor’s compliance or failure to comply with contract terms, and irrespective of how, or by whom, the debt is identified.  The revisions grew out of DoD’s recommendations published on May 26, 2005, and are being applied Government-wide “to improve contract debt controls and procedures, and to ensure consistency within/between existing regulations.”  73 Fed. Reg. 53997.

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