Government Contracts Intelligence Briefing

The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FAR Council) issued proposed updates to large portions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation as part of its comprehensive, self-titled “Revolutionary” FAR Overhaul Initiative. This is the latest in a process kicked off last year by President Trump’s Executive Order, Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement, which was issued on April 15, 2025. The stated goals of this effort include streamlining the federal procurement process, while ensuring the needs of end users are met. The FAR Council also announced that it will issue future rulemaking regarding the sunset of provisions that are not statutorily required to receive feedback on whether to retain those clauses.

Last summer and fall, the FAR Council issued temporary versions of the entire FAR through class deviations (some of which have made their way into contracts). This release builds upon that effort and updates about a third of the FAR, including Definitions (Part 2), Improper Business Practices and Personal Conflicts of Interest (Part 3), Protests and Litigation (Part 33), Information Security and Supply Chain Security (Part 40), and Contract Terminations (Part 49).  In total, the FAR Council updated 19 separate FAR Parts, in four separate releases:

• FAR Parts 1, 2, 4, 33, 39, 40, and 53;
• FAR Parts 3 and 49;
• FAR Parts 6, 7, 10, 18, 26, 37, and 41; and
• FAR Parts 5, 24, and 29.

It also updated the corresponding Part 52 contract clauses.

Significantly, the FAR Council is also proposing to update regulations that have been in various stages of implementation and have previously been separate from this process. They include regulations requiring the protection of controlled unclassified information, prohibiting the use and provision of certain Chinese telecommunications and video surveillance products and services, governing the implementation of the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act, prohibiting certain applications on specified devices, and restricting sales of drones from certain foreign covered entities to the US government. 

While Hunton will release future blog posts covering specific aspects of the proposed updates, some noteworthy changes from the historical (not deviated) FAR include:

• Moving Part 53 Forms to Part 1 (and online)—the forms themselves will be on a website, so rulemaking will no longer be necessary to update a form. This may require contractors to respond quickly to sudden changes, though a “notice and comment process for substantive changes to forms prescribed by the FAR remains unchanged.” The website is located at https://www.acquisition.gov/FARforms.
• Changes to definitions, including the removal of definitions covering sustainable acquisition policies, addition of definitions covering the protection of information (such as “Controlled Unclassified Information”), and changes to cornerstone definitions, including commercial products, commercial services, commercially available off-the-shelf, offeror, and simplified acquisition procedures.
• Agency-level protests must be reported to the head of contracting for the agency and, if a review is requested above the contracting officer level, the contractor must be provided with a redacted version of the agency’s final technical report, the protestor’s proposal, and the source selection decision. This will allow contractors opting to protest with the agency to have more confidence in the process and potentially reduce protests to the Government Accountability Office.
• New regulations requiring the protection of Controlled Unclassified Information for civilian contractors, which update the previous proposed version of this clause that was under review by the FAR Council since early last year.
• New regulations requiring the disclosure of cybersecurity incidents, which also update previously proposed versions and are less onerous than the initial proposal.
• Finalizing other outstanding supply chain regulations, including regulations covering the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act and the telecommunications and video surveillance ban regarding certain Chinese companies.
• New process for removing protective legends on contractor documents—contracting officers are still required to notify contractors prior to removing a legend.
• Audits of termination settlement proposals will no longer be mandatory and instead follow a risk-based approach.
• Default terminations will take a standardized approach, giving contractors awareness of the exact route to a default termination.
• Reorganization for noncommercial procurements into lifecycle-based subparts.

What’s Next?

The general public has until July 23, 2026 to comment on the newly-released proposed FAR Parts. Following the close of the comment period, the FAR Council is expected to issue a final version before the end of the year. After that happens, agencies are expected to adopt the new regulations in new contracts. Existing contracts will utilize previous versions, unless specifically updated.    

For the rest of the FAR, the FAR Council is expected to send the remaining versions to the Office of Management and Budget for review soon, in order to meet the stated goal of finishing this process by the end of the year. Once that occurs, we should expect to see those proposed versions within two months (if the timeline for this release is a guide) and final versions toward the end of the year.

Nevertheless, because the new versions are not operable in existing contracts, previous versions (including the deviated versions of these clauses) will persist for years to come.