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Subcontract Unenforceable When Violates SBA Requirements

Client Alert | 1 min read | 08.30.10

In Morris-Griffin Corp. v. C & L Servs. Corp. (Aug. 16, 2010), the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found that a subcontract between a small business prime contractor and its large business subcontractor was unenforceable because it violated the SBA's size regulations and limitations on subcontracting. After finding that the two companies were affiliated and that the large business subcontractor was seeking to enforce a subcontract under which it was entitled to greater than 50% of the costs incurred for personnel, the court concluded that the prime had falsely certified that it was a small business and that its contract awarded under an 8(a) set-aside had been "conceived in fraud," noting further that such set-asides "are susceptible to finagling."

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Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.12.26

DOJ Guidance Backs Away From Disparate Impact Liability

On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a formal opinion concluding that the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) existing interpretations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) disparate-impact liability, including the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), are unconstitutional. According to the opinion, EEOC’s prior interpretations contemplate liability based on disproportionately adverse effects alone, without regard to an employer’s likely intent, rather than treating disparate impact as an evidentiary mechanism to “smoke out” intentional discrimination. DOJ found that this approach functions as a “qualified racial-proportionality mandate” that places “a racial thumb on the scales, often requiring employers to evaluate the racial outcomes of their policies, and to make decisions based on (because of) those racial outcomes.” The opinion fulfills one mandate of Executive Order 14281, which rejected disparate-impact liability insofar as it “creates a near insurmountable presumption that unlawful discrimination exists wherever there are any differences in outcomes among different [demographic groups].”...

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