Additional Requirements for Market Research (FAR Case 2008-007)

Summary:

FAC 2005-50 adopts as final, with changes, the interim rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to implement section 826, Market Research, of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. Section 826 requires the head of an agency to take appropriate steps to ensure that any prime contractor of a contract (or task order or delivery order) in an amount in excess of $5 million for the procurement of items other than commercial items engages in market research as necessary before making purchases.

Supplementary Information:

I. Background

DoD, GSA, and NASA published an interim rule in the Federal Register at 75 FR 34277 on June 16, 2010, to implement section 826, Market Research, of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Pub. L. 110-181). Section 826 establishes additional requirements in subsection (c) of 10 U.S.C. 2377. As a matter of policy, these requirements are extended to all executive agencies.

Specifically, the head of the agency must conduct market research before issuing an indefinite-delivery indefinite-quantity task or delivery order for a non-commercial item in excess of the simplified acquisition threshold. In addition, a prime contractor with a contract in excess of $5 million for the procurement of items other than commercial items is required to conduct market research before making purchases that exceed the simplified acquisition threshold for or on behalf of the Government.

Three respondents submitted 16 comments on the interim rule.

II. Discussion/Analysis

A discussion of the comments and the changes made to the rule as a result of those comments are provided here.

Dates:

The Effective Date for this final rule is 15 April 2011.

Click here to read the entire Federal Register notice for this rule.

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