Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit articulated limits to the government’s ability to rely on the waiver doctrine to enforce Federal Acquisition Regulation (“FAR”) provisions of questionable legality, and, in so doing, cast doubt on the government’s “heads we win, tails you lose” approach to measuring the cost impact of simultaneous changes to a contractor’s cost accounting practices.
In The Boeing Company v. United States, 2019-2148 (Aug. 10, 2020), the Federal Circuit rejected the government’s argument that Boeing’s claim—which was based on an apparent conflict between (1) a statutory provision limiting the costs the government may recover for cost accounting practice changes to the aggregate increased cost to the government, and (2) a FAR provision under which the government’s recovery considers only the changes that increase costs to the government, and disregards changes that decrease costs to the government—was waived because Boeing did not raise the issue prior to contract award. Continue reading “Government Reliance on Waiver Argument to Keep Price Adjustment Windfall Fails”
A recent Federal Circuit decision has sustained an expansive judicial reading of what constitutes an expressly unallowable cost under FAR Part 31. This decision, reached in the context of lobbying expenses, provides the potential for expansive precedent for future disputes regarding what expenses constitute expressly unallowable costs. Including expressly unallowable costs in submissions to the government can result in penalties up to two times the amount of the disallowed cost. Taking into account this decision as well as the Defense Contract Audit Agency’s (“DCAA”) expressly unallowable cost guidance released earlier this year, contractors should review their policies and procedures for identifying and excluding unallowable costs from invoices and proposals on government contracts, and consider whether to broaden their policies.