The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has clearly caused some disruption in many industries. As a government contractor, there are language or FAR clauses in your contracts to help minimize the impact and to notify your customers of the same.
Most government prime contracts will have excusable delay language such as those below which excuses a contractor’s (or subcontractor’s) failure to perform for causes that are without the contractor’s (or subcontractor’s) fault or negligence for reasons such as acts of God or the Government or epidemics, etc.
- FAR 52.249-14 ‘Excusable Delays’ or
- FAR 52.212-4(f) ‘Contract Terms and Conditions – Commercial Items’
For government subcontracts you could have one of the above items and/or Force Majeure language to reference in your General Terms and Conditions (T&Cs). It is important to know the timing of your notice requirements in the case of an ‘event’. Regardless of your language, be sure to send your customer a notice of impact. Below is a example notice.
Dear [Insert Customer Name]
In accordance with our [Insert Contract Name and date], this letter provides notice of Force Majeure at [Insert Location where event occurred]. Due to [Insert the Event in detail], [Insert your company name] was not able [Insert what you lost or were not able to fulfill/complete] as we were [what happened? forced to shut down, etc.)]
It is unknown when normal operations will resume considering the extent of the event. As a result, [insert what is impacted (delivery, etc.)] under the contract(s) will be impacted. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this causes your company and will keep you updated on our progress to return to normal operations. We will be contacting you to provide specific information regarding product /service availability as soon as that information is known.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly at [insert email and/or phone number]
Sincerely,
[insert your name]