A Conflict of Interest

Trump International Hotel in the historic
Post Office Pavilion -Washington D.C

The historic Post Office Pavilion in Washington, DC is at the center of a hot procurement debate. Since 2012, the building is under lease by the Trump Organization to operate a luxury hotel. With Jan. 20^th looming over the United States as we wait for President-Elect Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Trump’s business ties with the General Services Administration are coming to the forefront of the debate.

The Post Office lease between the GSA and the Trump Organization is a 60-year, $180 million-dollar deal that is now at the center of constitutional scrutiny. Contract language is clear: “No ... elected official of the Government of the United States ... shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom....”(top of page 103 Ground Lease) . As things stand right now, not only would Mr. Trump profit and be in clear violation of this contractual clause, there are other delineating factors to consider; Mr. Trump will now be the individual in charge of appointing a new GSA administrator, a person who would be directly involved in negotiations and changes to the contract he holds, including but not limited to rent increase.

The contractual question is whether a blind trust run by Mr. Trump’s children is truly blind enough to be considered separate from the President Elect. Especially considering his children having active roles in Mr. Trump’s transition team and interacting with foreign officials, the lines between business government are being blurred. Although Trump’s team is sighting a Dec 15^th conference, where Mr. Trump’s involvement in his own business will be cleared up, the mixing of his family in both business and government does raise concerns for many in Washington.

Government procurement experts are urging the GSA to terminate the lease before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, however this is the first time that the GSA has acknowledged this as a potential problem. Whether the conflict of interest that this situation produces is valid, the contract clauses the govern the situation seem clear and lays out a way for the GSA.

Conference Planning for 2017

With the end of the new year you are probably working on what conferences your team is doing to attend for the new year. Have you looked at what conferences would be good for your government sales?

The Federal agencies host a wide variety of free vendor outreach events throughout the year. There are also a few paid conferences that could be beneficial for your company, although we recommend to stick to as many of the outreach events as possible.

So, what are vendor outreach events? These are events hosted by each individual agency for contractors to meet with the buyers for that agency. This is a great opportunity for contractors to ask questions of the buyer and vice versa.

There are a few different places to find Federal events:

• FBO.gov
• Gov Events
• Individual agency websites

I suggest taking a look at these sites on a monthly basis, a few allow you to subscribe for monthly updates. 

As always if you have any questions give us a call! 234-212-3400

Transactional Data Reporting (TDR)- What is it and why do you care?

The new transactional data reporting rule is now requiring vendors to electronically report the price the federal government actually paid for an item of service through the GSA acquisition vehicle. The rules on pricing with GSA have always said that the negotiated price is a ceiling price- meaning that vendors are free to provide GSA customers with additional discounts as they see fit. This means that tracking the actual cost paid for products/services vs. the “GSA price” has been a consistent problem for contractors and the GSA alike.

TDR reporting will be more time intensive for contractors who chose to be a part of the pilot program. Tracking the price per product instead of dollars per SIN will require additional work. However, the benefits for contractors are great as well. With TDR, Commercial Sales Practices and the Price Reduction Clause track will be eliminated for those who chose to part of the pilot program! Once the mod is accepted, contractors participating in TDR will no longer have to provide a CSP when submitting contract modification and will not have to track their BOA customer.

For contractors that accept the modification between now and December 31^st, the new reporting rules will go into effect on January 1^st.

If you are unsure how TDR will affect your contract administration efforts, drop us a line at info@govconsvcs.com and we’ll see if you can help you unravel the new rules and how to best move forward.