On December 7, 2021, the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia granted a preliminary injunction to temporarily halt the enforcement of the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for government contractors nationwide. The court held that President Biden’s executive order likely exceeded his authority under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act, 40 U.S.C. § 101 et seq. In his decision, Judge Baker stated the “direct impact” of President Biden’s executive order “goes beyond the administration and management of procurement and contracting; in its practical application … it operates as a regulation of public health.”[1] The injunction prevents enforcement of the vaccine mandate for prime contractors and subcontractors on all covered contracts “in any state or territory of the United States of America.”
Continue Reading Federal Court Blocks Vaccine Mandate for Government Contractors
COVID-19’s Impact on Construction: Is There a Remedy? — Time Extension, Force Majeure, or More?
With the many projects impacted by COVID-19, now is the time to pull out your contract (contractors and project owners alike) and consider how the contract’s delay, time extension, or force majeure clauses and other legal theories allocate this unusual risk. An extended and more detailed version of this Alert can be found by clicking here.
Force majeure clauses allocate risk of natural and unavoidable catastrophes that affect contract performance. Most standard US construction contracts (e.g., American Institute of Architects and ConsensusDocs) and federal and most state and local public construction contracts do not use the term force majeure, and instead provide relief for force majeure events in delay and time extension remedial clauses. Here we use the term force majeure to cover all such remedial clauses.