The President signed the 2019 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) named for Senator John McCain on Monday this week. We’ve covered a couple of the provisions in the legislation that are of interest to Government contractors, especially small businesses. Monday we discussed the prohibition against contracting officers arbitrarily withholding consent to subcontract just because they didn’t like the price or the estimated cost and yesterday we took a look at a provision designed to enhance the effectiveness of PTACs (Procurement Technical Assistance Centers). Yesterday we discussed a new requirement that allows the Defense Department to pay small businesses in 15 days rather than the traditional 30 days. Today we will look at the new definition of “commercial items”. There are two definitions now, one for commercial products and the other for commercial services. These will become important distinctions as the Government’s stated preference is to buy commercial first and if commercial items are not available, then to utilize some other procurement mechanism.
Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: NDAA 2019 – Commercial Products and Commercial Services
New Regulation Formalizes Ombudsman Practice and Identity for IDIQ Contracts
An ‘ombudsman’ is an official charged with addressing and/or investigating the interests of individuals’ or companies’
