Preventing Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition Act

To prevent organizational conflicts of interest in Federal acquisition, and for other purposes. 1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Preventing Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition Act 2. Findings Congress makes the following findings: (1) The Federal Government’s reliance on contractors for mission support services can create the potential for conflicts of interest related to impaired objectivity or undue influence due to contractor business relationships with regulated or other entities. (2) Comptroller General bid protest decisions in recent years have shown failures in proper identification and mitigation of organizational conflicts of interest. These decisions focus on the issue of impaired objectivity (3) Prior efforts by the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy and the Director of the Office of Government Ethics, undertaken pursuant to the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 ( Public Law 110–417 (4) Protecting against conflicts of interest in Federal acquisition is vital to the integrity of Government operations. 3. Preventing organizational conflicts of interest in Federal acquisition (a) In general Not later than 18 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council shall— (1) identify contracting methods, types, and services that raise heightened concerns for potential organizational conflicts of interest beyond those currently addressed in the Federal Acquisition Regulation; and (2) revise the Federal Acquisition Regulation to— (A) address organizational conflicts of interest with sufficiently rigorous, comprehensive, and consistent governmentwide policy and guidance to prevent or effectively mitigate such conflicts of interest in Federal acquisition; (B) provide and update definitions related to organizational conflicts of interest, to include contractor relationships with public, private, domestic, and foreign entities that may cause contract support to be subject to potential conflicts of interest, including undue influence; (C) provide executive agencies with solicitation provisions and contract clauses that require contractors to disclose information relevant to potential organizational conflicts of interest and limit future contracting with respect to potential conflicts of interest with the work to be performed under the awarded contract, for agency use as needed; (D) require executive agencies to tailor the solicitation and contract clauses described in subparagraph (C) as necessary to provide specifics on information required to be disclosed and limitations on future contracting based on the potential for conflict with the work to be performed under the awarded contract; and (E) require executive agencies to establish or update agency conflict of interest procedures to implement the Federal Acquisition Regulation revisions made under this section, and periodically assess and update these agency procedures as needed to address agency-specific conflict of interest issues. (b) Executive agency defined In this section, the term executive agency

Summary: Preventing Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition Act This act addresses conflicts of interest in federal acquisitions. Specifically, the act directs the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council to revise the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to provide and update definitions related to specific types of organizational conflicts of interest; definitions, guidance, and illustrative examples related to relationships of contractors with public, private, domestic, and foreign entities that may cause contract support to be subject to potential organizational conflicts; and illustrative examples of situations related to the potential organizational conflicts identified. Further, the council must revise the FAR to provide executive agencies with solicitation provisions and contract clauses to avoid or mitigate organizational conflicts, for agency use as needed, that require contractors to disclose information relevant to potential organizational conflicts and limit future contracting with respect to potential conflicts with the work to be performed under awarded contracts; allow agencies to tailor such solicitation provisions and contract clauses as necessary to address risks associated with conflicts of interest and other considerations that may be unique to the agency; require agencies to establish or update agency conflict of interest procedures to implement the revisions to the FAR made under this act and periodically assess and update such procedures as needed to address agency-specific conflict issues; and update FAR procedures to permit contracting officers to take into consideration professional standards and procedures to prevent organizational conflicts of interest to which an offeror or contractor is subject.