FAR 101 -or- Federal Acquisition Regulations for Dummies

In this video, SpendLogic discusses the following items:

• Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR)
• How to navigate the FAR and briefly go over flow-downs

Check out the video by clicking below. 

What Is The FAR?

The FAR, or Federal Acquisition Regulations, govern the acquisition and procurement policies and procedures for the Executive Branch of the federal government. It is supplemented by the DFARS, which covers the Defense branch of the government.

Note: The FAR is updated regularly, so be sure to check https://acquisition.gov/far for up-to-date information.

How Do I Navigate The FAR?

• Parts 1-4: General

• Parts 5-12: Competition And Acquisition Planning

• Parts 13-18: Contracting Methods And Types

• Parts 19-26: Socioeconomic Programs

• Parts 27-33: Contracting Requirements

• Parts 34-41: Special Categories

• Parts 42-51: Contract Management

• Parts 52-53: Special Clauses

What Are Flow-Down Clauses?

A Government prime contract clause that is incorporated into a subcontract/purchase order, etc. is considered a flowdown clause.  Flowdown clauses can be either mandatory or discretionary.  A flowdown transfers requirements from a prime contract into a subcontract in support of that prime contract and thereby transfers/shares responsibilities from the prime to the subcontractor.  Flowdown clauses can have significant impact on both the obligations and risk in the performance of a subcontract.  It is the prime contractor's responsibility to review and decide which of the clauses in the prime contract should flowdown to the subcontract.  In addition to being bad business practice AND a finding during a Contractor Purchasing System Review (CPSR), some courts have found that attempting to flow down ALL of the contract clauses to the subcontract is not enforceable since doing so will contradict other terms in the subcontract.