KBR, Inc. Acquires Wyle

The rich get richer, and contractor consolidation continues, as KBR announced that it will absorb Wyle’s 3,800 employees – or at least the ones the new company chooses to retain – into the new KBRWyle. In recent years, Wyle has been essentially forced out of the highly competitive overseas contractor industry and therefore focused more on domestic government service contracts. …

New U.S. Embassy in Swaziland

Officials recently gathered in the capital of Mbabane to christen a new facility which, given the rising unrest in the Sub-Saharan monarchy, will definitely need additional security. The sprawling $141 million campus is nestled in the picturesque Ezulwini Valley, which is directly south of the capital and the most popular tourist destination in Swaziland. This project is one of more …

The Number of Contractors in Iraq Continues to Rise

While troop levels have increased only slightly, the number of military contractors in Iraq has multiplied eightfold in only the last few months. 70% of the new contractors in the wartorn country are American nationals. These figures include only Pentagon contractors; hundreds or thousands more are serving the State Department and other government agencies. The buildup began just about a …

August 2016 Newsletter

Average Weekly Wage Update Insurance companies are at it again! Over the past few months the insurance companies have been raising a novel argument on the calculation of the average weekly wage. This new argument can present some hurdles, and may impact how Longshore and Defense Base Act claims are prosecuted. As we reviewed in an earlier Newsletter, the average …

The Specialized World of the Overseas Contractor

Military outsourcing reached a peak in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and many experts agree that the number of private contractors, and their percentage as the number of troops in-country, will continue to rise. In fact, the statistics indicate that the DoD is becoming increasingly dependent on military contractors. In Between 1992 and 1997, when most contractors essentially played support …