3 peer replies each 150 words and inlcude 1 direct question

Peer 1 (Derek):

The federal government or the executive agencies are mandated by Congress to implement, administer, manage, and execute the duties and function of the federal government and its branches. The mandates, policies, and regulations that dictate the way in which these federal agencies implement, administer, manage, and execute their duties are sourced in the US Code of Laws (USC), the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), the executives branch Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and a litany of congressional acts. When it comes to contract law or regulation, the federal government refers to these duties as “procurement” and or “acquisitions.” All federal executive agencies ‘ policies and regulations for the way in which they will conduct procurements or acquisitions are in title 48 of the CFR, which is called the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). Each agency and its branches have supplemented versions of the FAR; for example, in this week’s provided resources, I was able to find the IRS version of the FAR, which is the IRSAP, which is a supplement of the FAR and the Department of Treasury Acquisition Regulation (DTAR).

In both the federal government and civilian sectors, the “elements of a contract are the same.” The essential elements of any contract are:
Offer: In the context of government contracting, this refers to the different types of solicitations, such as Requests for Information (RFI’s) and requests for proposals (RFP’s). The Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) imposes a requirement for full and open competition. The federal government is required to offer its solicitations publically, and that contract award is based only on the evaluation criteria be based solely on the criteria stated in the request for proposal.
Acceptance: this relates to the fact that the government has informed a specific party that accepts the proposal of a contractor as meeting the criteria of its offer. Also that the contractor accepts the terms, conditions, and circumstances under the government will agree to accept completed services or commodities in exchange for the agreed-upon payment amount and type.
Consideration: Each party to a contract must provide something of value that induces the other to enter the agreement.
Mutuality of obligation: both parties must be bound to perform their duties, or the law will treat the agreement as if neither party is bound to perform. When an offeree and offeror exchange promises to perform, one party may not be given the absolute and unlimited right to cancel the contract. Although in the government contracting realm, there does exist an option for the government to terminate a contract out of convenience to the government in addition to the opportunity to terminate for cause.
Legal Purpose: Essentially, no contract that asks anybody to engage in illegal conduct can be honored by a court of law. Government contracts not only have to hold the government and the contractor accountable for US laws but also international laws.
Competency and capacity: A natural person who enters a contract possesses the full legal capacity to be held liable for the duties he or she agrees to undertake. In terms of federal contracting, only warranted contracting officers could legally obligate the government to provide financial compensation. In terms of who the government is willing to enter into a contract with, it will only do so with recognized business entities that must also comply with entering their information into certain federal acquisition and procurement databases.
Be in the correct form or written requirement: nearly every state legislature has enacted a body of law that identifies certain types of contracts that must be in writing to be enforceable. In federal contracting, as prescribed by the FAR Part 53, there is required a form for every facet of the contracting process.

Peer 2 (Reed):

Good afternoon class !

When it comes to what regulations and policies govern an acquisition, I think it really boils down to exactly what kind on contracting you are doing. Personally, I deal with government acquisition, specifically in the DoD, and more specifically in the Marine Corps. This being said, the main regulations that we are governed by are the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS). The FAR is essentially the Bible of all government acquisitions and the DFARS, essentially, takes the FAR and narrows the regulations down a little to where they are tailored more to apply specifically to defense acquisitions. Of course, all changes made to these stem from new laws and policies that are passed and put into place by the U.S. Government.

The article on Maryland and how acquisitions are conducted in that state was extremely interesting to me. In that article, Robert Brammer stated, ” One of the overarching principles of public procurement is full and open competition.” I found this statement interesting because I believe that applies to government procurement just as much as it does public procurement. Minus the cases where there are exceptions that disqualify the need for competition, the majority of acquisitions require full and open competition to ensure the government is getting a fair and reasonable price. Of course, every situation is going to be different, but, for the most part, the justification of a fair and reasonable price is often determined through price comparison that can only be established through the use of full and open competition.

References:

Brammer, R. (2013, July 23). State Government Contracts – A Research Guide. Retrieved from https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/07/state-government…

Peer 3 (Dee):

Hello all,

Since contracts are legal documents, it is important for contracting personnel to have knowledge of the various laws, regulations, and policies that govern an acquisition. It is important because the laws, regulations and policies dictate how contracts for an acquisition will be handled. According to the CMBK, 6th edition, it is not only important for contracting professionals to be knowledgeable of the laws, regulations, etc., but they must also know how to apply them. This goes for international laws as well.

The first point of interest for me in this week’s reading was the article on state government contracts. I’m so use to the FAR and other regulations that govern DoD acquisition that I sometimes forgot that states have their own specific laws as to how to performed contract management. Additionally, I found it interesting that the rules of the Code of Maryland Regulations for procurements and contracts are very similar to the FAR (at least the few I read).

The other point of interest for me in this week’s reading was the information on the Prompt Payment Act on page 111 of the CMBK. This is exactly as it sound, a law that requires the government to pay companies in a timely manner for the products or services they provided. I found this interesting for two reasons. One-it is the reason interest is paid on an invoice if the payment is processed late, which is good for the company of course. Two-when this law is not followed, the relationship between the buyer and the seller could be destroyed. I’ve had to deal with that a few times in my career in the Air Force and it is horrible. There’s nothing like trying to place an order for your customer just to find out you can’t because the account is on hold for non-payment.

Dee

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