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ISTOCK.COM/TU IS Attendees at the 2023 NASBP Annual Meeting and Expo this spring had a unique opportunity to catch a glimpse into the future of the surety industry. The Institute’s RiskStream Collaborative (RSC), partnering with surety system solution providers attending the meeting, offered a state-of-the-art demonstration of a technology that enables digital bonds to be verified and authenticated on a ...

ISTOCK.COM/SANFEL By A. Michelle West of Smith, Currie & Hancock LLP Parties can expect federal courts to scrutinize forum selection clauses in federal public contracts. Subject to multifactor reasonability tests and ambiguity inquiries, only the clearest clauses survive. A North Carolina federal district court declined to enforce a forum selection clause that sought to lay venue outside the state of ...

ISTOCK.COM/FILMFOTO By Michael C. Zisa and Abby B. Salinas of Peckar & Abramson, P.C. Effective May 11, 2023, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is amending various regulations governing its Capital Access loan programs, which were created to bridge the financing gap in private markets to help small businesses start and grow. Among these changes, the SBA is simplifying criteria for determining affiliation ...

ISTOCK.COM/DZMITRY SKAZAU By Ross L. Crown of Lewis Roca The Government Accountability Office recently returned to the subject of the unavailability of key personnel listed in contract proposals. ASRC Federal Data Solutions, B-421008, December 2, 2022, 2022 CPD, ¶ 294, is a bid protest where the awardee of the contract was found to have misrepresented its capacity to furnish a key person ...

ISTOCK.COM/MILEPOST430MEDIA EJCDC’s new Construction Manager At-Risk documents enable owners and contractors to take advantage of the benefits of the CM At-Risk project delivery method. Construction delivery systems have been evolving for decades as owners and contractors continue to search for ways to increase efficiency and reduce costs on their projects. One strategy that has been gaining in popularity with both ...

ISTOCK.COM/INVINCIBLE BULLDOG An average of three construction workers are killed due to job-related incidents each day. But there’s an even more deadly threat to this workforce, and it is self-inflicted; an estimated 10 to 12 construction workers kill themselves every 24 hours. According to a 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report, people employed in construction and extraction ...

ISTOCK.COM/IRYNA DROZD By Barry A. Fischman and William R. Kuhlman of Marcum LLPMarch 2023 Investing in research and development can save contractors time and money. However, a change in tax law may present a surprise tax bill for contractors when filing their taxes in 2022. Background The Research and Development (R&D) tax credit was created in 1981 to encourage businesses to ...

ISTOCK.COM/ANDRII YALANSKYI BY DAVID K. TAYLOR AND KYLE M. DOIRON of Bradley LLP Many construction contracts used in the industry include clauses mandating that any disputes be decided by binding arbitration rather than a jury or bench trial. The standard AIA forms provide the parties with the option of court or arbitration. Trial courts, overwhelmed by a flood of cases and ...

By Marina S. De Rosa of Ernstrom & Dreste, LLP ISTOCK.COM/STEPPRO It is well established that a surety has contractual and common law rights to recover losses from its principal and indemnitors, as well as the right to equitable subrogation to recover against others with a relationship to the principal, such as the principal’s liability carrier.[i] However, whether a surety ...

ISTOCK.COM/DESIGNER491 By Bryan C. Porter and Todd Feuerman of Ellin & Tucker In a marketplace filled with labor shortages and supply chain uncertainty, construction firm owners and executive management teams must be focused on completing construction projects on time and on budget. But as they balance long-term strategies with daily demands, succession planning may be the one task that should ...