If it weren't so scary, it would be funny: two different U.S. appeals courts came to two different conclusions about subsidies associated with the Affordable Care Act. Interpreting the language of the law, it seems, is a bit tricky.
Interpretation continues to be an issue with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) or as I like to call it, “the gift that keeps on giving.” Most recently, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory (FAR) Council proposed a rule that in effect treats counterfeit electronics parts and suspected counterfeits as one in the same in regard to reporting requirements.
According to Federal News Radio:
Joe Petrillo, a partner with Petrillo & Powell said, “This will have enormous consequences throughout industry. They define those terms [counterfeit and suspected counterfeit] in the same way [the Defense Department] does in their proposed regulations on counterfeit regulations, and then parts with a critical or major non-conformance — so these are parts that may be perfectly valid, fine parts, but they have a problem with them. And a major non- conformance is defined as one that is likely to result in failure or simply materially reduce the usability of the item for its intended purpose.”
Petrillo said the FAR Council’s liberal reading of the law means that every vendor providing any product, commercial or otherwise, would have to report back to the government.
“The entire supply chain is going to have this obligation to report these parts that will have a problem,” he said.
The issue of reporting has been raised before: experts in the electronics distribution industry say that many companies avoid reporting counterfeits for fear of repercussions. The NDAA/FAR rule requires companies to report suspected and actual counterfeit goods to the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP), which publishes the names of all parties involved in the transaction. Companies fear that even the suspicion of a counterfeit reflects poorly on their supply chain policies and practices. Additionally, as Petrillo points out, non-conformance and counterfeit are not the same thing.
