Insights

Law360 highlights the firm's Government Contracts Group and the recent webinar the Group conducted titled, "What Will the New Year Bring for Government Contractors?" This article details the five issues federal contractors should pay attention to in 2015, as forecasted by Crowell & Moring attorneys in their preview of the year ahead.

Washington, D.C.-based Labor & Employment Group counsel Rebecca Springer tells Government Contracts Law360 that due to "quite a bit of vagueness in the regulations and how they're being interpreted, so the OFCCP is using FAQs to address some of the questions that contractors have." She goes on to say that because those are just frequently asked questions and not written into regulation, the OFCCP could change the answers at any moment.

Rebecca Springer, a counsel in Crowell & Moring's Labor & Employment Group, tells Compliance Week that the OFCCP's regulatory agenda shows signs that a new data collection tool is playing an important role in the OFCCP's "establishment-specific, contractor-wide, and industry-wide analyses." Using such data to perform compensation audits across a contractor's multiple establishments would be a "significant change."

Washington, D.C.-based counsel Rebecca Springer discusses how federal contractors will have to change their current processes for recruitment and hiring because of two new final rules. According to the article, the final rules "require federal contractors to heed an exhaustive list of obligations to ensure compliance with non-discrimination and affirmative action requirements regarding veterans and individuals with disabilities." Springer explains that contractors and their written agreements with sub-contractors and/or vendors will have to now include new language to follow the rules.

Washington, D.C.-based counsel, and member of the firm's Labor & Employment Group, Rebecca Springer comments on the jurisdiction of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) after a Washington, D.C. federal court recently ruled that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) can treat certain hospitals as federal subcontractors for the purposes of affirmative action regulations.

Labor & Employment Group counsel Rebecca L. Springer is featured for her comments in a piece about how U.S. federal contractors will face more scrutiny under the Labor Department’s new auditing process and comprehensive reviews. This comes as a result  of the Obama Administration increasing the funding for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

Labor & Employment Group co-chair and partner Kris D. Meade and counsel Rebecca L. Springer are featured for their thoughts on the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) increased scrutiny of contractors and the lack of compliance guidance.

Washington, D.C. – based Labor & Employment Group counsel Rebecca L. Springer is featured for her comments on the federal government changing case management procedures, signaling more aggressive and broader enforcement of anti-discrimination laws. In December 2010, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs announced that it was discontinuing its Active Case Management procedures that have been in practice since 2003, impacting government contractors accused of discriminatory practices.