On December 23, 2019, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) published in the Federal Register a notice setting the US dollar procurement thresholds to implement certain US trade agreement obligations, as of January 1, 2020, for calendar years 2020 and 2021. Executive Order 12260 requires the USTR to set the US dollar procurement thresholds for application of Title III of the Trade Agreements Act of 1979, as amended (TAA; 19 U.S.C. 2511 et…
On 3 December 2019, the WTO announced that Kazakhstan’s application to start negotiating its accession to the WTO’s Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) was announced at a meeting of the Committee on Government Procurement on 3 December 2019. Currently, 48 WTO members (including the European Union and its 28 member states) are bound by the Agreement. Australia is the latest member to have acceded to the Agreement earlier in 2019. The WTO announcement said that Kazakhstan’s WTO membership terms, which…
On 23 October 2019, the WTO announced that at an informal meeting of the WTO’s Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) Committee, China introduced to the parties to the GPA its sixth revised market access offer in the context of its negotiations to join the GPA. The revised offer was circulated to GPA parties on 21 October. Chairman Carlos Vanderloo of Canada called this “a very significant development” and the parties also welcomed China’s revised offer while…
On September 10, 2019, the Department of Defense (DoD), General Services Administration (GSA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) published in the Federal Register a final rule [FAC 2019-06; FAR Case 2019-011; Item IV; Docket No. FAR2019-0011; Sequence No. 1] amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to add Australia as a World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement (WTO GPA) country. It applies to acquisitions over the WTO GPA threshold, as well as to acquisitions…
On August 14, 2019, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has published in the Federal Register a final determination concerning the country of origin of mobile device software and server software for purposes of government procurement under the Trade Agreements Act (TAA). Both software products are produced in a four-step process that involves: (1) writing original source code, or modifying open source software code in the United States; (2) writing or modifying source code in…
On August 9, 2019, the Department of Defense (DoD) published in the Federal Register a final rule [Docket DARS–2019–0037] that amends the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to add Australia as a new World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement (WTO GPA) country. On October 17, 2018, the WTO Committee on Government Procurement approved the accession of Australia to the WTO GPA. Australia submitted its instrument of accession to the Secretary-General of the WTO on…
On August 5, 2019, President Trump issued Executive Order 13884 (“Venezuela EO”) blocking all property of the Government of Venezuela (“GOV”), a significant escalation of sanctions against the regime of President Maduro. Statements issued by the White House and State Department indicate that this escalation is meant to target the Maduro regime for its continued abuses of human rights and repression. The US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) concurrently issued 12 amended general licenses and 13 new…
On April 30, 2019, the Department of Defense, Defense Acquisition Regulations System, published in the Federal Register an interim rule [Docket DARS-2019-0016] amending the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to implement a section of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 that prohibits acquisition of certain magnets and tungsten from North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran.
The WTO announced that Australia has ratified the WTO’s Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), submitting its instrument of accession to the WTO Secretariat on 5 April. The announcement said:
There have been two recent updates to the ‘Buy American, Hire American’ initiative (aka ‘the better enforce our government procurement rules of origin’ initiative) that we believe will have consequences for companies that sell products to the government directly or indirectly.