Contractors and government contracts attorneys are likely to see — if they haven’t already — a rise in the number of cases in which individuals, rather than corporate entities, are targeted by government officials for suspension and debarment.
This is significant because, under the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), the misconduct of an individual can be imputed to the contractor, causing the contractor to lose its ability to receive federal contracts.
Attention to the misconduct of individuals was encouraged by a September 9, 2015 memorandum from Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates entitled “Individual Accountability for Corporate Wrongdoing.” The memorandum instructs government officials “consistently” to “focus on individuals” throughout an investigation. Ms. Yates followed up her memorandum with remarks prepared for a conference held November 16, 2015 in Washington, D.C., in which she stated that the memorandum ushers in “a new policy designed to ensure that individual accountability is at the heart of [the government’s] corporate enforcement strategy.”
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See FAR Subpart 9.4 on the subject of Debarment, Suspension and Ineligibility here: https://www.acquisition.gov/sites/default/files/current/far/html/Subpart%209_4.html
