Government Shutdown - Stop Work Order

My company has a fixed-price contract with the government where we are paid agreed upon amounts for certain deliverables throughout the year.

It's hard to know what to make of your situation based on your incomplete description of the contract. If you are making deliveries throughout the year it may mean that there will be no one to receive them, inspect them, or use them, and that the stop work order is preliminary to government termination of the remainder or some part of the remainder of the contract. In any case, stop work means stop work. What will be will be. Write your congressional representatives and tell them what they are doing to you.

Today I received a notice from the Contract Officer indicating that if the shutdown lasts through October 15th, my company should stop work at that date in accordance with 52.252-15.

I am assuming that you meant 52.242-15 "Stop Work Order", correct? And I agree with Vern. While you are at it, please inform them how these political shenanigans will cost the TAXPAYERS more, too.

Hi barricaden,

Receipt of CO direction, as you described, is a great indication that it's now time to engage a really good government contracts attorney to advise you. You have a lot of work to do. If you do this right, at the end of the day you should be made whole. If you do this wrong, you are going to lose your shirt.

Hope this helps.

Some contracting officers think a stop work order means that the contractor is not incurring costs allocable to the contract. That is not necessarily true, and the clause authorizes an equitable adjustment if there is an "increase in the time required for, or in the Contractor's cost properly allocable to, the performance of any part of [the] contract." If the stop work order wil, as you say, be more costly to you, not less, you should seriously consider the previous suggestion on getting professional assistance in asserting your claim.