Federal contractors have been, and continue to be impacted by COVID-19 outbreak and its consequences such as suspensions of work, performance delays, extra costs, contract terminations and the like. To make matters more challenging, the government has failed to issue comprehensive guidance to contractors on how to systematically and consistently deal with the coronavirus’ impacts on federal contracts. Therefore, contractors are left to rely upon their contract terms and the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provisions incorporated into their contracts to interpret those provisions on a contract-by-contract basis to determine what relief is available for coronavirus impacts.
The Federal Contractors’ Guide to Coronavirus Contract Impacts provides an overview of the relevant FAR provisions that may apply to coronavirus impacts, the actions the government may take on federal contracts due to the impacts, the rights contractors have under the applicable FAR provisions, and the “best practices” that contractors should implement to provide the best opportunity to obtain time extensions and attempt to recover extra costs caused by coronavirus impacts.