ACC NCR: Organizational Conflicts of Interest: Recent Developments, Trends to Watch, and Lessons for Navigating the Future

Organizational Conflicts of Interest (OCIs) are one of the many areas that make doing business with the federal government different from commercial contracting.  Government contractors must be able to identify, avoid, and mitigate OCIs to ensure that they are not shut out of new opportunities, or worse, prohibited from performing contracts that they’ve won. To do that, it’s important to understand the changing landscape of regulations, caselaw, and legislation related to OCIs.  

This discussion will provide perspectives from in-house counsel, government agency counsel, and outside counsel on topics such as:

1.  Recent legislation mandating new OCI regulations and what those regulations might entail;

2.  Decisions from courts and the Government Accountability Office on what constitutes an OCI and whether and how OCIs can be mitigated; 

3.  Common mistakes for contractors to avoid; and

4.  Tips for contractors to avoid and mitigate OCIs in current and future government contracts.

Presented by Tracye Winfrey Howard, Partner at Wiley, Benjamin Willcher, Legal Counsel/OCI Manager at Elevance Health and Victoria Heiden Kauffman, Deputy Associate General Counsel (Contracts) at NASA.

1.5 Hours of VA MCLE pending.