GSA Targets Schedule Contract Holders Regarding Countries of Origin for Products

The General Services Administration recently targeted nearly 3,000 GSA schedule contract holders earlier this month regarding the countries of origin for the schedule contract holders' offered products. This targeting comes after numerous congressional inquires and FOIA requests alleging product violations of both the Trade Agreements Act and the Buy American Act.

Schedule contract holders were given a very short 5 days to review their total offering of products, submit spreadsheets verifying the products' countries of origin, and provide copies of Certificates of Origin or other certification from manufacturers. GSA threatened severe penalties for non-compliance, including removal of the vendor's entire GSA Advantage file.

GSA has confirmed its targeting of those vendors based on the congressional and other complaints about those specific schedules and product. It seems likely, however, that GSA will continue to expand the scope of its targeting to all contractors.

County of origin law compliance entails an often complicated analysis of products' manufacturing processes, including for many products transformation analysis from product origin to the product's later actual commercial use. Despite such complications, both TAA and BAA compliance are vendor responsibilities.

To what extent GSA extends its targeting, and also to what extent other agencies take similar actions to insure TAA and BAA compliance by their vendors and contractors remain to be seen. Vendors and contractors should, however, consider GSA's warning letters as advance notice to evaluate their TAA and BAA compliance, take any necessary corrective actions discovered, and be prepared to promptly address similar future agency notices.