The request from the UNCITRAL secretariat raised a number of issues that may be addressed in a reform of the 2011 law, including:
Topic
UNCITRAL Model Law and Texts: Potential Areas of Reform
Green Procurement
The Commission has declined to take up issues of “green procurement” (environmentally sustainable procurement), but a key issue here is one of trade – the Commission’s core area of expertise. Some have suggested that the Commission assess the barriers to trade raised, for example, by ecolabels, and seek to facilitate the use of green procurement under existing law.
Suspension and Debarment
The Commission has indicated that it may wish to expand the Model Law and Guide to Enactment on exclusion and debarment – the process, an inherent part of contractor qualification, by which a public purchaser excludes contractors that pose unacceptable performance or reputational risks.
E-procurement
The Commission may consider lessons learned from the procurement of IT projects, the need for new evaluation criteria, enhanced governance, ownership and control of data used to build large language models (LLMs) and of the public sector data used in operating LLMs, and organizational and capacity challenges, to avoid reproducing errors such as inappropriate specifications, integration failures, and poor outcomes.
Contract Administration and Contract Termination Procedures
Ensuring sound contract administration – including fair termination procedures – is essential to robust competition. To that end, the invitation for inputs asked whether this topic should be addressed “by reference to the provisions and related guidance contained in” the UNCITRAL Model Legislative Provisions on Public-Private Partnerships. Those PPP provisions usefully identify terminations for convenience and default. But they are merely a starting point, for they fail to address the prior notice normally required for a termination for default, or the necessary boundaries to a government’s right to terminate for convenience.
Whitelisting & Certification Schemes
The secretariat asked for inputs regarding the use of “whitelisting” (listing preapproved qualified suppliers) or certification schemes. The Working Group engaged in the prior reform of the Model Law did not embrace “supplier lists” precisely because with framework agreements (“IDIQ” contracts in the United States) – a cornerstone of the 2011 law — there are more protections than when using supplier lists or “whitelisting.”
Non-Price Criteria to Advance Efficiency, Integrity and Strategic Procurement
The use of non-price criteria has revolutionized public procurement over the last century. By looking to “value-for-money” (or “best value”) and weighing both price and quality, procuring entities have been able to match emerging technologies with governments’ unique requirements and resources. The secretariat looked further and asked whether, and how, “non-price criteria may allow States to pursue their socio-economic policies (e.g., procuring from and supporting domestic micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs)),” and whether a “detailed list of non-price criteria is usually found in procurement legislation” or regulations.
Review (Bid Protest) Procedures and Dispute Resolution Methods in Public Procurement, Including Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
The secretariat suggested an examination of the current law’s “review procedures and dispute resolution methods,” including the “use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in public procurement.” The Commission may wish: (1) To assess the current law’s Chapter VIII (Challenge Proceedings) against the Methodology for Assessment of Procurement Systems (MAPS), an OECD-supported assessment methodology which under Indicator 13 applies detailed criteria – many of which (such as limitations on fees) go beyond the Model Law — to assess remedies (bid challenge) systems. The MAPS approach, which fully matured only after the current Model Law was finalized in 2011, could help identify gaps in the current law. (2) To explore where Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) has been used successfully for bid challenges.
Facilitating Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSME) Participation
Making public procurement systems more accessible, proportional and MSME-friendly requires a nuanced approach, as data indicate that (a) SMEs constitute 95-99% of all businesses in many countries, and (b) medium-sized companies are not disproportionately disfavored in public procurement. The Commission may therefore wish to consider tools targeted at micro and small enterprises specifically.
Caroline Nicholas, then in the UNCITRAL secretariat, was a leader in developing the 2011 UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Procurement
These are many of the same issues proposed for review by the UNCITRAL secretariat (see A/CN.9/1230, paras. 17-26), which the Commission favorably considered in asking the secretariat to undertake preparatory work for a possible update of the model law (see A/80/17, para. 219).
Many of these potential areas of reform were also reviewed by Christopher R. Yukins and Caroline Nicholas in a book chapter, The UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Procurement: Potential Next Steps, in Elgar Companion to UNCITRAL (Rishi Gulati, Thomas John & Ben Koehler, eds.) (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2023), available athttps://ssrn.com/abstract=4293959. They followed up with additional inputs and references in a February 2026 letter to the UNCITRAL secretariat which addressed the proposed reforms outlined above. In the letter, Chris Yukins and Caroline Nicholas also noted the parallels between reform of the 2011 UNCITRAL model law and the ongoing reform of the American Bar Association (ABA) Model Procurement Code for State and Local Governments (2000), which is used by governments across the United States.
Professor Folliot-Lalliot’s Class at University of Paris – Nanterre
Teaching at the University of Paris – Nanterre
After the symposium on procurement-for-innovation in Paris on December 4, 2025, GW Law’s Professor Christopher Yukins again joined Professor Laurence Folliot-Lalliot’s class at the University of Paris-Nanterre on December 8-10 to offer an “Introduction to U.S. Procurement Law” (slides: Days 1-2 and Day 3).
Meeting at OECD on Procurement Updates
On December 11, 2025 professors from the academic network “Public Contracts in Legal Globalization” (including Professor Yukins) met with Paolo Magina and his procurement policy colleagues at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to discuss (among other things) potential updates to the OECD 2015 Procurement Recommendation.
Meeting of Public Contracts International Academic Network
Cité internationale universitaire de Paris
On Friday, December 12 professors from the “Public Contracts in Legal Globalization” network met, coordinated by Professor Laurence Folliot-Lalliot (University of Paris/Nanterre) and kindly hosted by Professor Stephane de la Rosa (Professeur de droit à l’Université Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC) – Chaire Jean Monnet), at the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris to discuss “Public procurement at a crossroads – Geopolitical changes, normative shifts” (La commande publique à la croisée des chemins – Transformations géopolitiques, mutations normatives).
Prof. Laurence Folliot-Lalliot and Prof. Stephane de la Rosa
Professor Daniel Schoeni (U. Dayton/GW Law) and Prof. Yukins presented on “America First Trade Policy and Trump Tariff Updates” (slides), as part of a broader panel on international trade and procurement led by Professors Laurence Folliot-Lalliot and Stephane de la Rosa. A complete program for the day’s international workshop is available here.
GW Law’s Professor Christopher Yukins addressed the Dutch Association for Procurement Law (Nederlandse Vereniging voor Aanbestedingsrecht) in Ede, the Netherlands, on November 20, 2025 (slides) on procurement for innovation on both sides of the Atlantic (photo at right). The association was established in 1995 and celebrated its lustrum (30 years) at the conference. The association has 750 members who work as public officials, in law firms, in the academy, in the courts, in consultancies and across the private sector; the Dutch association is, in many ways, remarkably similar to the ABA’s Public Contract Law Section.
Professors Willem Janssen (University of Utrecht) and Sarah Schoenmaekers (Maastricht University & Hasselt University) (pictured at left) kindly hosted Chris Yukins. Professor Schoenmaekers will be joining GW Law’s December 3-5, 2025 symposia on procurement for innovation.
Shortly after GW Law’s worldwide webinar on open contracting, GW Law’s Professor Christopher Yukins joined a regional conference in Borneo, held in Kuching, the capital of the Malaysian state of Sarawak. That conference helped launch a report, prepared by Professor Yukins and GW Law students Anisley Sanchez and Ellen Rolda for the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), on legal issues in open contracting in the ASEAN member states.
ASEAN was established in 1967 with the signing of the ASEAN Declaration by Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Since then, Brunei Darussalam, Viet Nam, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Cambodia have joined, to make up what is today the ten member states of ASEAN. (Timor-Leste, the newest Member State, had not formally joined ASEAN at the time the study launched.)
Kuching — capital of Malaysia’s Sarawak state, Borneo (credits)
At a September 2025 regional conference in Kuching, Malaysia which helped launch the study, experts from around the world discussed the prospects for open contracting as an anti-corruption tool in the ASEAN nations. The conference outcomes document called for a strengthening of legal and policy frameworks, aligned with core open contracting principles of disclosure, participation, and accountability.
The forthcoming UNODC report is the next step – an in-depth look at what is needed, from a legal and regulatory perspective, to bring open contracting to the ASEAN member states.
Open contracting is a simple concept: it means making public procurement data both accessible (typically by posting it online) and machine-readable (so that the data can be readily scanned and assessed). As the Open Contracting Partnership explains, open contracting “consists of disclosure and citizen engagement throughout the entire procurement process,” which “increases competition, improves public service delivery, creates better feedback loops, and ensures better value for money.”
The report will assess the prospects for open contracting in the ASEAN nations by looking to ten factors highlighted in a landmark report, How can we legislate for open contracting?(2021), published by the Open Contracting Partnership:
Set out clear principles for all public procurement procedures in a single piece of overarching legislation.
Establish strong anti-corruption and conflict of interest provisions.
Promote competition and provide clear safeguards in non-competitive procedures, such as those used in emergency procurement.
Ensure clear requirements to publish information at all stages of the procurement process, and maintain a complete record in one location.
Use digital platforms and open data standards to foster and increase transparency and accessibility to information about public procurement procedures.
Enforce publication requirements, deadlines, and clearly manage exemptions.
Create procedures for public participation and monitoring across the entire procurement cycle.
Support an accessible and effective complaints procedure.
Empower oversight authorities.
Provide effective guidance and guidelines to make procurement processes accessible and user-friendly to government, private sector, and civic users or observers of the system.
In largely unnoticed developments, both the U.S. Department of Defense and the Senate Armed Services Committee have signaled that, consistent with current law, items purchased by the Department of Defense (called the “Department of War” by the Trump administration) should be exempt from tariffs. Although the Senate legislative provision was ultimately eliminated from the National Defense Authorization Act (see House Rules Committee final text of the NDAA), the tariff exemption remains in the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS). If rigorously exercised, the exemption could vastly simplify tariff issues for both the Defense Department and its contractors.
Editor’s note: An April 2026 update on the Defense Department’s exception from tariffs, published by Lexxion, is linked above.
The Trump administration’s tariffs have been controversial worldwide. One open issue for the U.S. procurement community has been whether those tariffs would be applied to items purchased from abroad by the U.S. government — in essence, whether the government would have to pay higher prices due to its own tariffs.
An earlier posting explained the various federal procurement exceptions from tariffs built into U.S. law. Those exceptions have sometimes been difficult and uncertain to administer, however, which left open the risk that the Trump administration tariffs would drain resources from federal government procurement. The initiatives outlined below make it less likely that — at least with regard to Defense Department purchases — the Trump tariffs will apply to federal purchases.
Procedures for Defense Department Tariff Exemption
The procedures for duty-free entry of Defense Department supplies are explained in a July 2025 Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) presentation to the Defense Acquisition University (DAU), which included the following process chart:
The process is spelled out in the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) clause DFARS 252.225-7013, in DFARS Subpart 225.9, and in DFARS Procedures, Guidance and Implementation (PGI) Subpart 225.9. The process, as the diagram above reflects, results in a certification from the Department of War that the supplies are entitled to duty-free entry under Section XXII, Chapter 98, Subchapter VIII, Item 9808.00.30 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, which covers “Materials certified to the Commissioner of Customs by the authorized procuring agencies to be emergency war material purchased abroad.” Customs rulings under Item 9808.00.30 are here.
Defense Department Memo Confirming Exemption
In an August 25, 2025 Defense Department-wide memorandum, John Tenaglia, the Principal Director, Defense Pricing, Contracting, and Acquisition Policy, emphasized that existing Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement 225.901 (DFARS 225.901) exempts many Defense Department purchases of foreign supplies. “In accordance with DFARS 225.901,” noted the memorandum, “unless the supplies are entitled to duty-free treatment under a special category in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule,” or the contractor has already paid the duty, per DFARS 225.901 the Defense Department will issue duty-free entry certificates for:
End products and components from “qualifying” countries (which have reciprocal defense procurement agreements with the U.S. Department of Defense), and
End products (but not components) that are “eligible products,” i.e., come from nations that have free trade agreements with the United States (such as the WTO Government Procurement Agreement), and
“Other foreign supplies for which the contractor estimates that duty will exceed $300 per shipment into the customs territory of the United States.”
As was discussed above, normally the procedures for applying duty-free treatment to Defense Department procurements are set forth in DoD guidance, PGI Subpart 225.9. The August 2025 memorandum went further, and said that “contracting officers shall include or modify contracts” to include DFARS 252.225-7013 – Duty Free Entry (as prescribed in DFARS 225.1101(4)) for any “contracts or orders that anticipate delivery of end products, components, or materials imported into the customs territory of the United States.” The referenced clause, DFARS 252.225-7013, says that the exception is to extend to subcontracts, as well.
To “maximize the Department’s budget to meet warfighter needs,” the Defense Department memorandum said, contracting officers are to note in soliciting and contract materials “that any subsequent contract action will include the duty-free entry clause,” and that the “contractor should use the clause to assure that appropriate shipping documentation is used to prevent incurring duties.”
The Defense Department memorandum thus leveraged existing exceptions to make it clear that Defense Department supplies from abroad should be exempt from tariffs.
Editor’s note: As is discussed below, the policy memorandum on the Defense Department tariff exemption appears to have been removed from the DoD website; a copy, however, is archived here, and the memorandum is still indexed among acquisition policies.
In practical terms, these exceptions should cover a very large percentage of foreign end products and components purchased by the Defense Department. Reciprocal defense procurement agreements and the WTO Government Procurement Agreement will cover a broad range of supplies from abroad. For those products not covered by agreements, with baseline tariffs internationally of 10 percent (see map), it is likely that many remaining Defense Department procurements will meet the trigger of $300 in duties for exempting “other” foreign supplies. And because Defense Department procurements make up by far the largest share of U.S. federal procurement (see below), this Defense Department exception is likely to play a prominent role in U.S. government procurement.
Senate’s Proposed NDAA Section 874: A Re-Exemption
Section 874 of the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2026, S. 2296, would have reinforced the tariff exemptions for defense supplies. While it did not become law in the final version of the NDAA, Section 874 made clear the Senate’s ‘ support for the exemptions. Echoing the existing exemption under DFARS 225.901, the proposed NDAA Section 874 would have required the Defense Department to “issue a duty-free entry certificate” for covered supplies “imported pursuant to a procurement contract entered into by the Department of Defense.” The supplies would have to be (1) an end product or component imported from a country with which the United States has a memorandum of understanding for reciprocal procurement of defense items (commonly referred to as “reciprocal defense procurement agreements“), or (2) an “eligible product” under section 308 of the Trade Agreements Act of 1979 (19 U.S.C. 2518), i.e., an item covered by the WTO Government Procurement Agreement or other free trade agreements with the United States (list). Unlike the existing regulation, DFARS 225.901, Section 874 of the Senate NDAA would not have exempted other “foreign supplies for which the contractor estimates that duty will exceed $300 per shipment.”
Section 874’s exception would not have applied if the item was already duty-free under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, or if the contractor had already paid U.S. duties on the product or component.
The Defense Department would be required to submit a report to Congress by January 30, 2026 on the impact of the Trump administration tariffs on the Defense Department, its contractors and its broader supply chain.
In the committee report which accompanied the Senate bill, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) explained the concerns that underlay Section 874. The Committee “emphasize[d] that defense-related acquisitions from qualified sources under Reciprocal Defense Procurement Agreements should remain exempt from any tariffs or trade restrictions,” and “urge[d] the Department of Defense and relevant interagency stakeholdersto preserve existing exemptions and ensure that future trade actions do not hinder defense procurement or compromise national security priorities.”
The Senate NDAA bill differed from the House of Representatives’ version of the bill, HR 3838, which passed the House on September 10, 2025, and which did not contain a similar provision. (The Senate bill was again offered as an amendment in the nature of a substitute by SASC Chairman Roger Wicker and Ranking Member Jack Reed on September 4, 2025; that version also included Section 874.)
Finalized National Defense Authorization Act and the Tariff Exception
In an important development, the conference report to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (the final version of the bill which reflected compromises between the House and Senate) removed Section 874 of the Senate version of the legislation, a provision which the Trump administration had opposed because the Senate provision had endorsed the U.S. Defense Department’s exception from the Trump administration tariffs. (The Joint Explanatory Statement which accompanied the conference report noted Section 874’s removal, at page 193.) The conference report has been approved by both houses of Congress.
The Joint Explanatory Statement which accompanied the compromise legislation also called for a report on the impact of tariffs and trade agreements. The Statement said:
The Senate bill contained a provision (sec. 874) that would require the Secretary of Defense to issue duty-free entry certificates in certain circumstances and require supply chain tracking.
The House bill contained no similar provision. The agreement does not include the Senate provision.
We note that it will be increasingly important for the Department of Defense to track the impact of economic fluctuations, including tariffs, supply chain disruptions, and inflation, on all major prime contracts entered into by the Department. Therefore, we direct the Secretary of Defense to provide a briefing to the congressional defense committees, not later than March 1, 2026, on the impact of significant economic fluctuations on Defense programs. Such briefing shall include:
(1) An assessment of cost increases to both the Department and contractors as a result of tariffs imposed since February 1, 2025, under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701) and section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (19 U.S.C 1862);
(2) An assessment of the effects of such tariffs on supply chains and lead times for major defense platforms; and
(3) A summary of agreements entered into under section 4851 of title 10, United States Code, and an assessment of the application of those [reciprocal defense procurement] agreements to the defense supply chain.
Importantly, the underlying regulations and guidance discussed above, used to exempt many Defense Department purchases from tariffs, remain in place. But the implementing Defense Department memorandum, though it is still indexed among Defense Department procurement policies, appears to have disappeared from the Defense Department’s website.
A longer-term question is whether the DFARS provisions which exempt Defense Department supplies from tariffs will be affected by the Trump administration’s “revolutionary” overhaul of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). The first step in the overhaul, now concluded, has been to issue proposed deviations from the FAR, part by part. The next step is to be a formal rulemaking to overhaul the FAR.
In that first step of the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO), the administration issued a revised version of FAR Part 25, which governs foreign acquisitions across all federal agencies. The overhauled FAR Subpart 25.9 would continue to recognize existing tariff exceptions, including the limited tariff exceptions afforded under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS). The RFO does not address the Defense Department’s exemption (see above), which falls under the Defense Department’s supplement to the FAR. Thus the RFO (so far) would leave the Defense Department, but not civilian agencies, with a clear exemption from tariffs.
Extending the Tariff Exception to Civilian Agencies
Another open question is whether a tariff exception should be extended to civilian agencies as well. A tariff exception for civilian agencies is especially important because President Trump’s Executive Order 14240, Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement, centralizes the acquisition of common goods and services at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) — a civilian agency. If GSA is to serve as a lead purchaser for the Defense Department, a blanket governmentwide tariff exemption would be more efficient; otherwise, GSA (and other civilian agencies sponsoring governmentwide acquisition contracts) may need to distinguish between defense and civilian orders in managing tariffs, and civilian agencies may face much higher costs because of tariffs.
Extending the blanket tariffs exemption to GSA would also open the door to possible tariffs exemptions for state and local governments, through cooperative purchasing. For decades, GSA has taken the lead in opening its Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contracts to state and local governments (and others) through cooperative purchasing. Because state and local governments procure using billions of dollars annually in federal grant funds, if those state and local governments enjoyed the same tariff exemption for cooperative purchases through the GSA contracts — at least for federally funded procurements — both the federal government and its state and local grantees could save substantially.
Conclusion
Existing regulations afford important tariff exceptions to Defense Department purchases from abroad. Those exceptions are intended to ensure that the Defense Department’s mission is not hampered by tariffs. A logical next question would be whether items purchased by civilian agencies — which are covered by free trade agreements, but not by reciprocal defense procurement agreements — would also be given a blanket exemption from the Trump administration tariffs. Another open question is whether state and local governments, if they purchased “cooperatively” through a federal contract, would also be able to take advantage of these tariff exceptions.
Congress is taking up various proposals for bid protest reform, the focus of a GW Law September 9, 2025 webinar (registration) and the article below from the Government Contractor.
The Public Procurement Law Review (Sweet & Maxwell / UK), edited by Professor Luke Butler and his colleagues at the University of Nottingham, has published a special issue focused on international trade and procurement.
Four of the pieces from the special issue, discussed below, are available on the Social Sciences Research Network (ssrn.com) and below.
In their introductory editorial, “Procurement Trade Agreements and Their Discontents,” Robert Anderson (Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham School of Law, and Senior Fellow, Competition and Innovation Lab, The George Washington University, and former team lead at the WTO on the Government Procurement Agreement) and Christopher Yukins (GW Law) put the accompanying articles into context. They noted that the GPA, as the premier trade agreement, “is currently under an unprecedented degree of scrutiny on the part of one of its founding Parties, . . . the United States,” which calls for a “spirited defence . . . of the GPA and other trade agreements embodying government procurement commitments and their contribution to international governance and prosperity.”
Jean Heilman Grier
In her piece, “Expansion of International Procurement Commitments: WTO Procurement Agreement Versus Free Trade Agreements,” Jean Heilman Grier (Djaghe, LLC) (the author of The International Procurement System, a leading volume on the United States and international public procurement trade), argued that the large numbers of nations that have committed to open their government government markets to foreign suppliers “reflects the important role that government procurement plays in international trade.” She noted that while “the GPA will continue to add new members—albeit slowly, [free trade agreements (FTAs)] will provide the principal expansion of international procurement commitments, as they encompass both GPA parties and those outside the plurilateral agreement.” Although the GPA’s membership “may be outpaced by FTAs” which she described in detail, Jean Grier wrote that the GPA “will continue to serve as the international gold standard for government procurement provisions and the foundation for procurement rules across the globe.” She cautioned, though, that the “potential spoiler is the United States with President Trump’s America First trade policy undermining existing agreements and threatening withdrawal from the GPA and even the WTO.”
Derek McKee
In their piece on bid protests and the trade agreements, “The GPA’s Domestic Review Procedures Through the Lens of North American Sub-Central Implementation: Flexibility or Incoherence?,” Derek McKee (Faculté de droit, Université de Montréal) and Daniel Schoeni (University of Dayton) noted that although the GPA “requires parties to give foreign suppliers access to independent and impartial fora where they can challenge public procurement decisions,” many U.S. states and Canadian provinces — though both countries are members of the GPA “have domestic review procedures that comply with some, but not all,” of the GPA’s requirements. They place part of the blame on ambiguities in Article XVIII of the GPA, and provide examples of North American sub-central review systems that embody these ambiguities.
Daniel Schoeni
The final piece, “An Empirical Study of Bid Protests by Disappointed Tenderers in US States,” by Daniel Schoeni (University of Dayton), was an extension of Professor Schoeni’s doctoral research at the University of Nottingham. In it, he reported on data he gathered on bid protests (challenges) in the states, and noted that bid protests are “at least as common at the state level as at the federal level.” Knowing that — that protests are a commonly available remedy for uncompetitive discrimination at the state level — could, Professor Schoeni noted, “foster confidence among foreign suppliers and thus encourage greater participation from abroad.”
Christopher Yukins
Editor’s note: The pieces shared here were first published by Thomson Reuters, trading as Sweet & Maxwell, 5 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5AQ, in 34 Pub. Proc. Law Rev., No. 4 (2025), and are reproduced by agreement with the publishers. For further details, please see the publishers’ website.
On July 1-2, 2025, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) held its Public Procurement Forum 2025, a major international conference to discuss cutting-edge developments in public procurement around the world.
Panelists (L-R) Nicolas Pinaud, Chris Yukins, Gavin Hayman, Filipa Urbano Calvao, Aidan Sweeney & Gillian Dorner
Professor Christopher Yukins (GW Law) joined a panel (listed below) to discuss building public trust through public procurement.
Professor Yukins argued that the OECD can play a critical convening role, helping the key players in reinforcing public trust — vendors, enforcement officials, members of civil societies and other — address the agency and monitoring problems that can otherwise erode public trust in public procurement.
On July 22, 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Government Operations, held a hearing on “Bid Protest Reform: Understanding the Problem” (Congress.gov record of hearing).
The hearing was led by the Subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Pete Sessions (TX), and ranking member Rep. Kweisi Mfume (MD). Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC) also offered opening remarks. The hearing (subcommittee record) was called to allow members of Congress to hear from experts about potential bid protest reforms.
Kenneth Patton, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Kenneth Patton, Managing Associate General Counsel at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and a member of GW Law’s Government Procurement Law Program advisory board, was the lead witness. He presented GAO’s response to Section 885 of last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which asked for input on proposed changes, such as charging costs to losing protesters. Ken Patton explained why GAO (and the Defense Department) believe radical changes to the protest system are not needed — that the bid protest system is fundamentally sound, after a century of development. (SeeABA submission on Section 885.)
Professor Christopher Yukins (GW Law) and Zachary Prince (GW Law JD 2013 (with honors), partner at the law firm of Haynes & Boone and an adjunct professor at the Law School) agreed. In his testimony, Zach Prince urged members of Congress instead to expand agency debriefings to losing bidders, to reduce bid protests and expand transparency, and Chris Yukins did the same in his testimony. See, e.g., Nathaniel Castellano & Peter Camp, Postscript III: Enhanced Debriefings: A Simple Strategy for a More Manageable Protest Process, 35 Nash & Cibinic Rep. ¶ 46 (2021). (By coincidence, GW Law the same day hosted part of its global webinar series with the Open Contracting Partnership in Asia, on transparency in contracting.)
Editor’s note: On August 14, 2025, Chris Yukins submitted his responses to follow-up questions from Chairman Pete Sessions, on potential pathways to bid protest reform.
After the hearing Chris Yukins and Zach Prince met with House staffers to discuss next steps, including a webinar that GW Law will be holding on September 9 on developments in bid protests — click above to register.
