By Mark Kantor

On March 21, Congressional negotiators reached last-minute agreement on a 2232-page “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018” to implement the bipartisan budget agreement from earlier this year (available at http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20180319/BILLS-115SAHR1625-RCP115-66.pdf). Such “must pass” legislation is always a popular vehicle for “policy riders.” This year, one such rider that appears to have successfully made its way into the final legislation prohibits Federal contractors or subcontractors, under Federal contracts exceeding $1 million, from entering into or enforcing pre-dispute arbitration provisions under which an employee or independent contractor agrees in advance to resolve through arbitration “any claim under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or any tort related to or arising out of sexual assault or harassment, including assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, supervision, or retention.” Title VII, of course, covers all employment discrimination, not just sexual assault or harassment (https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii.cfm). There is an exclusion in the provision for agreements that may not be enforced in US courts. In addition, the Secretary of Defense can waive the prohibition if “the Secretary or the Deputy Secretary personally determines that the waiver is necessary to avoid harm to national security interests of the United States, and that the term of the contract or subcontract is not longer than necessary to avoid such harm.”

The agreed text reads as follows:

24 SEC. 8095. (a) None of the funds appropriated or
25 otherwise made available by this Act may be expended for
1 any Federal contract for an amount in excess of
2 $1,000,000, unless the contractor agrees not to—
3 (1) enter into any agreement with any of its
4 employees or independent contractors that requires,
5 as a condition of employment, that the employee or
6 independent contractor agree to resolve through ar-
7 bitration any claim under title VII of the Civil
8 Rights Act of 1964 or any tort related to or arising
9 out of sexual assault or harassment, including as-
10 sault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional
11 distress, false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, su-
12 pervision, or retention; or
13 (2) take any action to enforce any provision of
14 an existing agreement with an employee or inde-
15 pendent contractor that mandates that the employee
16 or independent contractor resolve through arbitra-
17 tion any claim under title VII of the Civil Rights Act
18 of 1964 or any tort related to or arising out of sex-
19 ual assault or harassment, including assault and
20 battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress,
21 false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, supervision,
22 or retention.
23 (b) None of the funds appropriated or otherwise
24 made available by this Act may be expended for any Fed-
25 eral contract unless the contractor certifies that it requires
1 each covered subcontractor to agree not to enter into, and
2 not to take any action to enforce any provision of, any
3 agreement as described in paragraphs (1) and (2) of sub-
4 section (a), with respect to any employee or independent
5 contractor performing work related to such subcontract.
6 For purposes of this subsection, a ‘‘covered subcon-
7 tractor’’ is an entity that has a subcontract in excess of
8 $1,000,000 on a contract subject to subsection (a).
9 (c) The prohibitions in this section do not apply with
10 respect to a contractor’s or subcontractor’s agreements
11 with employees or independent contractors that may not
12 be enforced in a court of the United States.
13 (d) The Secretary of Defense may waive the applica-
14 tion of subsection (a) or (b) to a particular contractor or
15 subcontractor for the purposes of a particular contract or
16 subcontract if the Secretary or the Deputy Secretary per-
17 sonally determines that the waiver is necessary to avoid
18 harm to national security interests of the United States,
19 and that the term of the contract or subcontract is not
20 longer than necessary to avoid such harm. The determina-
21 tion shall set forth with specificity the grounds for the
22 waiver and for the contract or subcontract term selected,
23 and shall state any alternatives considered in lieu of a
24 waiver and the reasons each such alternative would not
25 avoid harm to national security interests of the United
1 States. The Secretary of Defense shall transmit to Con-
2 gress, and simultaneously make public, any determination
3 under this subsection not less than 15 business days be-
4 fore the contract or subcontract addressed in the deter-
5 mination may be awarded.

The agreed legislation is now expected to pass Congress very promptly. But, if the appropriations bill is not signed by the President before midnight Friday, then the US Government will once again shut down for lack of funds (https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/21/politics/congress-unveils-spending-package-fix-nics/index.html). Observers expect the bill to pass Congress on a bipartisan vote, just as the original agreement did earlier this year. But the timing of passage, and thus the possibility of another very short Government shutdown, may be affected by opponents’ parliamentary maneuvers.

Mark Kantor is a CPR Distinguished Neutral. Until he retired from Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, Mark was a partner in the Corporate and Project Finance Groups of the Firm. He currently serves as an arbitrator and mediator. He teaches as an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center (Recipient, Fahy Award for Outstanding Adjunct Professor). Additionally, Mr. Kantor is Editor-in-Chief of the online journal Transnational Dispute Management.

This material was first published on OGEMID, the Oil Gas Energy Mining Infrastructure and Investment Disputes discussion group sponsored by the on-line journal Transnational Dispute Management (TDM, at https://www.transnational-dispute-management.com/), and is republished with consent.