Handling Subcontractor Pass-Through Claims Under the CDA

Fox Rothschild – This is the sixth of an eight-part series addressing cutting-edge strategies for Certified Claims under the Contract Disputes Act (CDA).As discussed elsewhere in this series, the CDA offers contractors a jurisdictional avenue to bring Claims when the government causes time/cost impacts on a federal project.  Such Claims rarely exist in a vacuum – those government impacts inevitably flow down and affect subcontractors providing services on the project. A subcontractor (which has a direct contractual relationship with the prime) does not hold a contract with the government and therefore (in the vast majority of cases) may not bring a direct CDA Claim.  However, that does not necessarily mean that subcontractors lack a remedy for the impacts that they experience during the project.