Compliance Stuff

For better or worse, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the legal industry. The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) recently decided  Bramstedt Surgical Inc. [1] , dedicating three pages to warnings about penalties it could have imposed on the protester and protester’s counsel for incorrect citations . For those tracking GAO’s recent handling of protesters and lawyers who file documents that appear to be riddled with AI-hallucinated citations or legal arguments citing to cases that do not stand for the premise alluded to, the decision comes as no surprise. Nevertheless, the  Bramstedt  decision serves as a stark reminder that while AI can be a useful tool, it can also create serious professional and legal exposure when used without proper oversight .  In this blog, we will explain why GAO’s decision should be a wake-up call for government contractors relying on AI for their protests , identify key risks protesters need to understand before using AI, a...

Football, pumpkin spice, and Halloween are not the only things to expect this upcoming fall season. With the federal government’s fiscal year ending on September 30, the next few months are sure to be a busy time for federal procurement and, inevitably, bid protests. Protests related to federal government procurements have strict and short deadlines that carry harsh consequences if they are not met. The following discussion examines the protest deadlines for the various venues in which government contractors often find themselves . In this alert, we summarize the deadlines for small business procurement programs associated with the Small Business Administration (SBA) and for merit-based protests related to the issuance of a government solicitation or the award of a contract.   For procurements that are set aside under SBA’s programs, there are three key determinations that are often the subject of protests: size of the awardee, status of the awardee, and the North American Industr...

  Hello everyone, so far Canada (where I was born) is not the 51 st  state.  In other news:   GSA Consolidation   Executive Order 14240 mandates that GSA submit a plan today, June 18, 2025, to centralize procurement of common goods, services and GWACS for IT.    This was supposed to be a dance of agencies proposing how to consolidate procurements within GSA and GSA developing a plan for how that will be implemented.  So far no one has agreed on what kind of DJ will host the event and who is bringing the snacks.   FAR Redo   So far (excuse the pun), nothing major has been done under the FAR redo.  The Trump administration issued the third set of changes under the “Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Overhaul,” revamping FAR Part 18 (Emergency Acquisitions), Part 39 (Information and Communication Technology), and Part 43 (Contract Modifications) through proposed class deviations.  Those changes have not been signif...

  Ergonomics and musculoskeletal disorders are the subject of a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) study that portends an even greater focus by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on the warehousing and distribution center sector. Quick Hits A recent GAO report includes several recommendations for how OSHA should evaluate its national emphasis program on warehousing and distribution centers to “more fully protect workers” from ergonomic hazards. The GAO found that three major hazards—falls, slips, and trips; objects and equipment; and overexertion/bodily reaction—were the leading causes of most injuries and illnesses in general warehousing and last-mile delivery services. The GAO recommendations include revising the OSHA Form 300 to include a column for musculoskeletal injuries to help compliance officers more easily identify when such injuries occurred. On July 13, 2023, OSHA announced a national emphasis program (NEP) directed at  warehou...