Pursuant to Section 809 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016, the Department of Defense (“DoD”) has provisionally seated a Panel (“Section 809 Panel”) to review and make recommendations for streamlining and improving the DoD acquisition process and maintaining defense technology advantage. The Section 809 Panel seeks to address the overarching question of “How would we restructure our business models [DoD’s Business models] to enable a rate of innovation that would allow us to maintain and increase our technological dominance?”  including:

(1) what significant changes could be made to make the process of doing business with DoD faster and more efficient?

(2) How does DoD change business models to include emerging technology and adopt new business approaches?

(3) What are the barriers to flexibility and innovation? (4) What key areas does industry see as most prohibitive to business–technologically and financially?

A portal is being established so the public can submit comments. The Panel is holding meetings to engage the contracting community in identifying and potentially addressing significant areas of concern. It also plans to establish task forces to analyze each of the identified areas and to develop recommendations for inclusion in a report to the Secretary of Defense. The Secretary then will provide his comments and the Panel report to Congressional committees.

The American Bar Association Public Contract Law Section (“ABA PCLS”) submitted comments in response to the questions raised by the Panel in these initial outreach efforts. Click here to view the comments as filed. 

If you are interested in further information on this Panel, please contact Susan Ebner, Shareholder at FortneyScott.