The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, touted as “America’s Seed Fund,” seek to foster a healthy environment for small business startups to innovate and provide a path to private-sector commercialization of new technologies.
Continue Reading SBIR Program Survives Programmatic Dissolution (With Some Changes)
I will present “SBA All Small Mentor Protégé Program Joint Ventures” for the Maryland Procurement Technical Assistance Center (Maryland PTAC). In this two-hour presentation, you will learn the ins and outs of the popular Mentor Protégé Program and get answers to these, and many more, questions.
Continue Reading Register Now | SBA All Small Mentor Protégé Program Joint Ventures
I will join Brian Mulier (Bird & Bird LLP) and Keith Huffman (SAP) to present a workshop titled “A Multi-Jurisdictional Discussion of Export Controls on China, Russia and Belarus: Contrasting US, UK and EU Restrictions” on Monday, November 14 from 1:30-5:00 pm at the London Forum on Global Economic Sanctions being held at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel.
I will join Lexia Krown, Vice President Global Trade Compliance at ESAB Corporation to present a workshop titled “The Ins and Outs of EAR Licensing Exceptions: How to Determine If, When and How They Apply” on Thursday, October 20 from 1:00-4:30 pm ET as part of the ACI Proficiency Series: Export Administration Regulations.
The Bass, Berry & Sims international trade team is actively monitoring the situation in Russia and Ukraine and providing real-time advice to clients on managing the situation. This post summarizes new U.S. sanctions and export restrictions as of Monday, October 3. This post supplements our previous summaries, which are available by following the links at the end of this blog post.
On September 19, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) updated its growing list of aircraft that have flown into Russia and/or Belarus in apparent violation of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). As discussed previously, these aircraft are essentially off limits for any person to service (or operate), given that nearly any dealing with respect to such an aircraft would violate General Prohibition 10 of the EAR.
On September 15, President Biden announced the issuance of Executive Order (EO) 14083 to sharpen the focus of inbound investment screening by more formally tying the role of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS or the Committee) to the president’s national security prerogatives. For the first time since the Committee was established in 1975, the EO provides formal presidential direction delineating five specific factors for the Committee to consider when reviewing foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies.
Continue Reading A First! President Hones Government’s Foreign Investment Review
The General Services Administration (GSA) is scheduled to expand a 2016 rule this November, but faces significant opposition from within its own agency due to questionable data from a pilot program. On June 23, 2016, GSA published a final rule requiring contractors to report transactional data for both products and services provided under Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contracts. The rule sought to collect the data necessary to allow the government to make smarter buying decisions, promote industry-wide competitiveness, and reveal buying patterns, but also to reduce the administrative and transactional burden on government contractors, eliminating barriers to entry – especially for small businesses – as it eliminated Commercial Sales Practices (CSP) and Price Reduction Clause (PRC) reporting.
Continue Reading GSA’s Transactional Data Reporting Rule Set to Expand Amid OIG Worries
I recently authored an article for Connector, the official magazine of the Steel Erectors Association of America, outlining the types of government contracts and workers impacted by Executive Order 14026 (EO 14026) that increased the minimum hourly wage for certain federal contractors from $10.50 to $15.00. This increase went into effect on January 30, 2022 and is intended to promote “the government’s procurement interests in economy and efficiency by contracting with sources that ‘adequately’ compensate their workers.”
Continue Reading Impact of Increased Minimum Wage Requirement for Federal Contractors
I recently provided insight for an article in Law360 on the announcement by the Biden administration to suspend the enforcement of the government contractor vaccine mandate. In August, the Eleventh Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for government contracts but limited the scope of that nationwide injunction to just the plaintiffs. There are currently five other pending challenges to the mandate in different jurisdictions.
Continue Reading Suspension of Government Contractor Vaccine Mandate Enforcement
On September 9, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published an interim final rule to clarify how American industry can participate in international standards-setting activities when interacting with entities on the Entity List.
