Law360 Interviews Ron Lee on NDAA Implications for Government Contractors

Ron Lee, senior counsel in Arnold & Porter’s Government Contracts and National Security practices, was recently quoted in the Law360 article, “New Chinese Lobbying Law Raises Q’s For DOD Contractors,” covering how defense contractors are navigating implementation of a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 that prohibits the Secretary of Defense from contracting with companies that contract with a firm that provides lobbying activities for companies on the Department of Defense’s list of Chinese military companies operating in the United States.

Ron highlighted that, because of the NDAA’s broad definition of lobby activities, the law inevitably affects a very wide range of defense contractors.

“I can’t think of any group of DOD contractors that could just confidently say, well, we don’t really need to worry about this, because we know exactly who all the other clients and activities of all the entities that you contract with,” Ron said. “So, it’s something that I think is and probably should be occupying the attention of pretty much the entire DOD contracting community.”

He also emphasized that the process of ensuring contracts comply with the law will be ongoing, as DOD continues to update its 1260H list with additional covered companies.

“[Defense contractors] have to look at all their other business partners, the people that they’re contracting with ... the law firms, the consulting firms, the lobbying firm, and so on, and those firms’ customers [and] clients could be changing all the time,” Ron said. “So, the point I’m trying to make here is that it’s a very much dynamic and constantly changing situation.”

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