On Tuesday, June 30, 2020, at noon Eastern time, join a free hour-long webinar sponsored by George Washington University Law School’s Government Procurement Program to discuss GSA’s recent contract awards in the “commercial platforms” initiative — contracts estimated to be worth $6 billion annually, which were awarded to Amazon Business and two other online marketplaces.
Moderator Christopher Yukins (GWU) will introduce GSA’s “commercial platforms” initiative, and discuss potential challenges in implementation.
Robert Handfield, the Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University, and Director of the Supply Chain Resource Cooperative, will discuss how the government’s use of commercial platforms could improve the resilience of public supply chains in times of crisis.
Thomas Kull, professor of supply chain management at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, will review the training that will be needed under this initiative, as non-procurement professionals take on substantial purchasing responsibilities through the new platforms.
Andrea Patrucco, professor of project and supply chain management at Penn State Beaver, will discuss the potential impact of this initiative in state and local governments, and internationally.
Roger Waldron, Coalition for Government Procurement
Special guest Roger Waldron, president of the Coalition for Government Procurement (a leading industry association of commercial contractors who sell regularly to the federal government), will join the panel to discuss industry’s perspectives on GSA’s initiative. The Coalition has raised a number of concerns regarding the new commercial platforms initiative, including concerns regarding agency accountability, pricing, supply chain security, counterfeit goods, and market concentration.
The panelists have co-authored a background article for the seminar in the Government Contractor; the piece was published in the days before GSA announced the contract awards. In the article, Professors Christopher Yukins (George Washington University), Robert Handfield (North Carolina State University), Thomas Kull (Arizona State University) and Andrea Patrucco (Penn State University Beaver) discuss key themes for the upcoming webinar: challenges in what is, in essence, a new method of procurement; improvements that the initiative will bring to supply chain resilience; training that will be needed for federal purchasers; and, the possible impacts on procurement markets, both in the United States and abroad.
GSA’s commercial platforms initiative, by opening online marketplaces to federal users’ micro-purchases, could have an enormous impact on broad portions of the federal marketplace. If the challenges can be met—if GSA’s commercial platforms initiative succeeds – it may serve as a model for other public purchasers across the United States, and across the globe.
On June 5, 2020, Professors Michal Kania (University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, and a former Fulbright Scholar at GWU Law) and Christopher Yukins joined to discuss lessons learned in procurement from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The European Union has launched important initiatives in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in joint procurement and funding innovation to drive the recovery. In the United States, governments’ initial response was marred by fierce competition between federal and state governments for critical medical supplies. But U.S. governments have a long tradition of joint procurement (called “cooperative purchasing”) among governments, and in funding innovation through various initiatives including the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. International organizations, including the United Nations, have also played an important part in coordinating international relief efforts in procurement.
Registrants were from over thirty countries across five continents
Panelists
Lucian Cernat
Lucian Cernat, Chief Trade Economist, European Commission – welcoming remarks.
Bertrand Wert
Bertrand Wert, PhD, Innovation Maker for the European Innovation Council, Accelerator, in the Business Acceleration Services team, where he has been in charge since 2015 of supporting innovative SMEs that are members of the Accelerator to gain access to public and private procurers of innovation. The EIC Accelerator programme supports the most innovative European SMEs, via grants and equity, to commercialise their innovative solutions and to look for investors. Bertrand worked from 2009 to 2015 for Directorate General GROW of the European Commission, in the team developing the “Innovation Union” strategy. Meanwhile, piloting demand-driven policy interventions, he managed several public procurement networks or “buyers’ groups” of innovation (Pre-Commercial Procurement & Public Procurement of Innovation).
Jekaterina Novikova
Jekaterina Novikova is Innovation Policy Coordinator at the European Commission, Directorate General for Research and Innovation in the newly created European Innovation Council Task Force. Her areas of responsibility include innovation procurement and the connection of innovation ecosystems under the Horizon Europe program. An EU official since 2005, she spent five years in management positions implementing FP-7 and Horizon 2020 research projects. As an EU fellow, she spent the academic year 2018-2019 in the US, at the University of California, Berkeley where she conducted research on how the US government, universities and industry facilitate the transition of research results to market. Jekaterina is a Certified Chartered Accountant and holds an MA in European Affairs from Lund University, Sweden.
Ivo Locatelli
Ivo Locatelli, Senior Expert–Team Leader in innovation procurement at the European Commission (DG GROW (Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs)). Ivo has written on innovative procurement in the European Union, and will draw on his assessment of Europe’s experience to discuss next steps in joint procurement among the member states.
Stephan Corvers
Stephan Corvers (s.corvers@corvers.com), managing director of Corvers Procurement Services (Netherlands), a private company which has been operating in the field of European procurement since 2000. Corvers has been involved in a wide range of procurement projects, relating to new markets, new products or services, new distribution channels, and new technology. Corvers is a contractor for the EAFIP-initiative of the European Commission.
Discussants
Benedetta Audia
Benedetta Audia, United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) as Corporate Legal Advisor, where she heads the commercial and institutional law practice and has played a lead role in UNOPS’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She is an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School, a Visiting Professor of Public International Law at LUISS Guido Carli University. She holds a Juris Doctor degree in Public International Law and two Masters Degrees (in Corporate Law and Legal Advanced World Studies).
Justin Kaufman
Justin Kaufman, General Counsel, NASPO ValuePoint, leading U.S. publicly led “cooperative purchasing” vehicle, coordinated through the National Association of State Procurement Officers (NASPO) and used by all 50 states and hundreds of local governments across the United States. Justin has worked for many years in cooperative purchasing in the United States, and was a contributing author to Joint Public Procurement and Innovation: Lessons Across Borders (G. Racca & C. Yukins, eds., 2019).
Thomas Hendrix
Thomas Hendrix, Managing Partner, Decisive Point, a venture advisory and investment firm focused on advanced technology. Tommy works regularly with emerging companies in the SBIR program, building innovative solutions for government. Tommy served in the US Army for nearly 10 years as a Ranger, Green Beret, and Commander in a counter-terrorism response force. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in Law and Legal Systems from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and is a candidate for a Master of Studies in Law at George Washington University. Prior research he has done on improving innovation in government-funded research and development is here.
Moderators
Gabriella Racca
Professors Gabriella Racca (University of Turin) and Christopher Yukins (George Washington University
A special note to the international procurement community — the World Bank needs your help in its worldwide survey of emergency procurement practices for the COVID-19 pandemic, available here
The first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic brought a new wave of trade controls, as countries imposed new barriers against trade in vital supplies such as masks and ventilators. Now as the COVID-19 pandemic enters its next phase – as the disease recedes in some populations, and attacks others with new ferocity – a simple but critical question has come into focus: do trade barriers make sense in a pandemic?
One striking aspect of the pandemic has been the global supply chain needed for supplies essential to fight the virus. In an April 2020 report, the World Trade Organization highlighted the global sources for medical supplies, and the World Health Organization and other international organizations have stressed the need for international cooperation in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zornitsa Kutlina-Dimitrova
Concerns over new protectionism in the United States arose earlier this year, when the Trump administration signaled that the United States might withdraw from the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) in response to a GAO study which suggested that European exporters enjoy lop-sided access to the federal procurement market. Lucian Cernat and Zornitsa Kutlina-Dimitrova, trade economists at the European Commission, have responded that the U.S.-EU trade balance in procurement, if read broadly, is actually much more favorable to the United States.
Another potential Trump administration initiative would impose new trade controls to force pharmaceutical companies to bring their production to the United States. This initiative, long pressed by senior White House trade advisor Peter Navarro, appears to have faded as well.
The Trump administration instead took a focused approach to trade controls, when on April 10, 2020 the Federal Emergency Management Agency imposed export controls under the Defense Production Act on personal protection equipment, including certain masks and gloves. At the same time, companies such as 3M were being savaged by President Trump for shipping emergency supplies abroad, even when (as 3M made clear) those shipments might be critical to other countries’ efforts to fight the pandemic.
Tom McSorley
But even the Trump administration’s most aggressive export controls, such as those aimed at Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and other sanctioned nations, will not necessarily block life-saving supplies. As Tom McSorley and his colleagues have pointed out, exceptions built into the U.S. export regime will still allow humanitarian supplies to reach Iran and other nations under U.S. sanctions. The FEMA ban on exports of PPE also allows for exceptions – under FEMA’s approval – for humanitarian purposes, Tom McSorley and his colleagues have noted. [Editor’s update: FEMA’s exceptions to the export ban — including a blanket exception for shipments to Canada and Mexico — are published in draft form here.]
Even more striking was the Trump administration’s decision to waive certain import controls – long the heart of Trump’s “Buy American” rhetoric – on vital items in short supply, from N95 masks to bleach. In normal times, the U.S. General Services Administration, which runs “schedule” contracts used by federal agencies for tens of billions of dollars in annual sales, complies with the Trade Agreements Act (TAA) by banning supplies from countries that have not entered into free trade agreements with the United States (“non-TAA” countries). Because of acute shortages in fighting the pandemic, however, GSA has temporarily lifted that ban for certain supplies. [Editor’s note: Jean Grier’s summary of this development is at Perspectives on Trade: ‘US Temporarily Lifts Procurement Ban’] The Trump administration’s abrupt volte face suggests that trade controls can raise dangerous barriers in times of crisis.
Even more striking was the Trump administration’s decision to waive certain importcontrols – long the heart of Trump’s “Buy American” rhetoric – on federal procurements of vital items in short supply
Simon Evenett – University of St. Gallen (Switzerland)
U.S. trade controls in the pandemic are part of a broader trend around the world, as nations try to reshape trade flows to husband supplies needed to address the COVID-19 disease. Those trade controls, which Simon Evenett of the University of St. Gallen calls “sickening-thy-neighbor” measures, raise serious humanitarian and political questions now that some countries no longer need equipment that is desperately sought in other nations. With the pandemic receding, New York will now share ventilators it no longer needs with Maryland and Ohio; should the United States do the same for Senegal, or for new hotspots such as Sweden? And what role should international institutions, such as the WTO, the World Bank and the OECD, play in facilitating international cooperation rather than trade barriers – global cooperation, as Laurence Folliot Lalliot has argued, that will be needed to save lives. (An update: EU Commissioner Phil Hogan on April 16, 2020 called for a temporary international ban on tariffs for vitally needed COVID-19 supplies, and made clear that European Union cannot “on-shore” its manufacturing in the long term — it will continue to rely on an international supply chain for key medical supplies.)
Laurence Folliot Lalliot – University of Paris Nanterre
Solving that puzzle – weighing protectionism in the pandemic – may require a new set of policy metrics. Zornitsa Kutlina-Dimitrova of the European Commission has argued that trade restraints make little sense when weighed against the secondary economic effects (e.g., the industrial atrophy, the isolation from innovation) that trade controls cause. Her research bears special attention now, when human lives – not just dollars – weigh in the balance.
Editor’s note: Join a free GW Law webinar on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at 9:00 ET/14:00 UK/15:00 CET/21:00 CST. Simon Evenett, Robert Anderson, Jean Heilman Grier, Tom McSorley and Zornitsa Kutlina-Dimitrova (invited) will convene before a worldwide audience to discuss “Protectionism in the Pandemic.” The program will be moderated by Laurence Folliot Lalliot, Vanessa Sciarra of the NFTC and Christopher Yukins. Program information and registration.
A new threat has emerged in the pandemic: fraud in the supply chain for critical COVID-19 supplies. Governments the world over are fighting back against price gouging and defective supplies. What tools are available, and will they work? Join a free one-hour webinar with GW Law, as experts discuss these critical global developments in anti-corruption and procurement.
Moderators: Christopher Yukins, GW Law School (Washington); Jean-Bernard Auby (Professor emeritus, Sciences Po Law School (Paris)); Gabriella Racca (University of Turin); Laurence Folliot Lalliot (University of Paris Nanterre (joining from Dakar))
The international procurement community is grappling with the COVID-19 coronavirus and its effects. To learn from procurement leaders in Europe and the United States how agencies and contractors are responding, GW Law held a free online colloquium (Zoom webinar) on Tuesday, March 24, 2020, at 12 noon ET.
Wednesday, February 19, 2020, 9 am – GWU Law Learning Center – Room LLC006 – 2028 G Street NW
Join Andrea Sundstrand (Stockholm University) and Colette Langos (University of Adelaide) to discuss developments in Europe and Australia in defense procurement. Professor Sundstrand will discuss how defense procurement is treated under European law, including under the leading decisions of the Court of Justice for the European Union. Colette Langos will present a “snapshot” of the law and policy landscape surrounding Australian defense procurement. The session is free, and light refreshments will be served.
Session will be held downstairs at the GWU Law Learning Center, 2028 G Street NW
Jessica Tillipman, GWU Law School – Co-chair, ABA SIL Anti-Corruption Committee
On February 13, 2020, at 12:00 noon ET, the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of International Law (SIL) Anti-Corruption Committee will join with the ABA Public Contract Law Section (PCLS) Suspension and Debarment Committee, for an informal lunchtime session on developments in international debarment. The session will be moderated by Assistant Dean Jessica Tillipman, George Washington University Law School, Washington DC.
Christopher Yukins, George Washington University Law School (who co-teaches courses on anti-corruption with Dean Tillipman), will discuss emerging international models for debarment, and the impact that new electronic marketplaces may have on debarment globally. With regard to the U.S. experience, he has drafted a book chapter with John Pachter and Jessica Tillipman, for a forthcoming book on compliance by Cambridge University Press. Professor Yukins has also co-written a piece with Professor Michal Kania (U. Silesia – Katowice), comparing debarment in the United States and the European Union.
Pascal Friton, a partner in the BLOMSTEIN firm, Berlin, will discuss how the European Union’s member states are addressing exclusion and debarment, drawing on a piece he presented at the Thomson Reuters Government Contracts Year in Review in February 2019. He also will be speaking on the afternoon of Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at this year’s Year in Review conference.
Collin Swan, World Bank
Collin Swan, of the World Bank’s Office of Suspension & Debarment, will discuss his office’s debarment survey and the office’s ongoing research into other debarment systems (beyond the United States and the World Bank). See his FCPA Blog post on the survey.
Grace Sullivan, a third-year student at the George Washington University Law School, recently won first prize in the Public Contract Law Journal annual writing contest for her note (which was also accepted for publication in the Journal). Her note analyzes three case studies of foreign contractors debarred by the U.S. government: Chinese telecommunications giants ZTE and Huawei, and Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky. Ms. Sullivan will be presenting on her note at the March 2020 ABA PCLS Federal Procurement Institute in Annapolis, MD.
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Professor Gabriella Racca hosted a colloquium on transnational procurement at the University of Turin on February 5, 2020. The discussion focused on a new book, Joint Public Procurement and Innovation: Lessons Across Borders(G. Racca & C. Yukins, eds., 2019). Further information is included in the accompanying flyer.
