Construction and many other contractors who cannot telework may be receiving stop-work orders or facing other unique challenges on their government contracts in the face of COVID-19. Impacts may be exacerbated for personnel working in the field who may not be receiving guidance from the government due to unavailability of their Contracting Officers (CO) or Contracting Officer Representatives (COR).
An Associated General Contractors of America Association’s (AGC) survey found that although the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has allowed construction firms to add and retain employees despite cancelation of projects, the loan program “will cover only a limited part of company expenses and is not enough to offset the huge drop in projects.” ENR recently reported that of 817 AGC members surveyed, sixty-seven percent had at least one project canceled or delayed.
There are several avenues of relief in the FAR that contractors and subcontractors (if these clauses have been flowed down) can look to for relief:
