Proposed Rule: Confess Crimes Or Face Debarment The Federal Acquisition Regulation Councils will not require small businesses to set up formal ethics awareness and training programs. But for the first time, all contractors would be required to report any violation of criminal law in the performance of a contract under the proposed rule published in the Nov. 14 Federal Register. Those who do not report violations could be suspended or debarred. The Justice Department’s Procurement Fraud Task Force recommended the reporting requirement because “few companies have actually responded” to a Defense Department hotline for voluntarily reporting violations of law, the councils said. The rule would require all contractors to notify the agency’s inspector general and the contracting officer “whenever the contractor has reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of criminal law has been committed” in performance of a contract. The FAR councils originally proposed in February that all businesses having a federal contract worth more than $5 million must establish ethics awareness and training programs. The new rule would exempt small firms from that requirement. “This directly reduces the burden on small business concerns,” the councils said. The proposed rule is FAR case 2007-006. Comments are due Jan. 14.