In addition to the FAR itself, there are also additions to the rules that can add agency-specific guidelines for acquisitions. For example, the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (« DFARS ») and the General Services Acquisition Regulation (« GSARS ») are two of the thirty supplements to the FAR. It is important to note that these additional regulations do not replace the FAR – they only serve to add or amend the regulations. To be selected for public procurement, the tenderer must comply with the complex rules of the FAR or additional rules that may be required, otherwise the proposal may not be examined by the Agency. You may be able to negotiate special treatment for certain costs with your contract agent. Where applicable, they should be documented in writing, indicate the specific contract or group of contracts to which they apply and indicate the duration of the exemption. Common examples may include the costs of using fully depreciated assets, the costs of decommissioned assets, travel and relocation expenses. Paragraph 15.6 includes unsolicited proposals, that is, commercial proposals that offer new and innovative ideas outside the context of innovative proposals invited and offered through a government-initiated procurement process. The Regulation proposes that executive agencies make arrangements for the adoption of unsolicited proposals and for prior contacts with persons or organisations considering submitting such a proposal. [13] The most regulated aspect of acquisition is contractual pricing, which is covered across the FAR, but in particular in paragraphs 15.4, 30 and 31 and subsections 42.7, 42.8 and 42.17. Much of Subchapter D of the FAR describes various socio-economic programs, such as various programs for small businesses, purchases from foreign sources, and laws to protect workers and professionals working under government contracts. To take another example, what happens when significant research and development is required to adopt a commercial item for government use? Should Parts 12 and 13 of the FAR be used here? No way. There are no market pricing mechanisms for the non-standard variant – the government is the only buyer of that particular variant of the item commercially available.
If the FAR requires that a clause be included in a government contract but that clause is omitted, case law may provide that the missing clause is deemed to be included. This is called Christian doctrine, which is based on the underlying principle that certain government regulations have the power and effect of laws[2] and that government officials cannot depart from the law without proper approval. It is believed that potential contractors are aware of the law, including the limits of the authority of government personnel. Thus, a mandatory clause expressing an essential or deeply rooted part of public procurement policy is incorporated into a State contract as of right, even if the parties have deliberately omitted it. FCC 2020-02 deals with the reporting of certain counterfeit or suspicious parts and certain serious or critical non-conformities. Contractors and subcontractors are now required to report these items and incidents to the Government-Industry Data Sharing Program (PEDIP). This rule was already in effect for DoD contractors and subcontractors, but now extends to other government agencies, other types of parts, and other types of nonconformities. Review the new requirements here to ensure compliance. What about situations where government demand overwhelms the supply of commercial markets? In this case, the government is competing with itself because it has swallowed the market as a whole and usually has multiple activities competing with each other for the same goods and services. This is evident in cases where many contract offices unknowingly demand the same goods and services, resulting in prices relative to each other.
In these cases, contract orders often accept take-out or leave-on prices from relatively few suppliers (relative to demand) who know that these contract offices do not coordinate with each other or set up product control boards to ration demand from civilian sources of supply. As the Federal Reserve will confirm, inflation is one of the most damaging elements of an economic system for investment, capital markets and economic activity. In this case, the effect of massive cost inflation directly affects civilians and non-state consumers, who also compete for the same goods and services as U.S. government supply orders; Ultimately, the deep pockets of government outweigh the lower purchasing power of non-state market participants. In such cases, as the U.S. government did during World War II, commodity control boards must be put in place to identify all available sources of supply and ration deliveries to different consumers, including U.S. government consumers, sometimes with price controls (although this is very dangerous as this often leads to criminal-led black markets). One solution in this case is to identify markets that are not affected by government demand and try to purchase goods and services through that other market. When the situation of overwhelming government demand occurs in a weakened or damaged economy, government demand that goes beyond what local suppliers can provide to state and non-state consumers should be met by suppliers operating outside the relevant market, including through the GSA Schedule system if the damaged market is outside the United States. The federal government has resources and expertise to assist in cases where federal demand exceeds civilian supply, such as the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF). The ICAF charter is to maintain the ability to nationalize an economy in order to achieve strategic objectives or wartime mobilization, it is a good resource of expertise in this particular area. .