Volatile U.S. tariff announcements continue to affect international supply chains for U.S. construction projects. Although recent litigation has centered on the scope of presidential tariff authority rather than construction‑specific disputes, these decisions carry important implications for how parties structure risk in their contracts. In May 2025, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) struck down certain “Liberation Day” tariffs as exceeding presidential authority under IEEPA. A federal district court in Washington, D.C. likewise issued a preliminary injunction suspending related tariffs—though it later stayed its own order pending appeal. And the Supreme Court has agreed to review cases addressing the legal limits of IEEPA‑based tariffs.
Continue Reading Managing Tariff Volatility in Cross‑Border U.S. Construction Projects: Practical Contract‑Drafting and Procurement Strategies
Seyfarth Construction associate Michael Wagner spoke on the topic of fair legal solutions to material cost escalation in the April 19th episode of The Morning Huddle podcast “Contractual Solutions to Cost Escalation.”
In heavy-civil, excavation, and infrastructure work, the risk of encountering differing, unknown, or concealed conditions is significant, as it is nearly impossible to document or predict everything that the contractor will encounter below the surface when performing its operations. Although standard pre-bid site surveys, including soil and geotechnical reports, are good resources to evaluate potential concerns, they will almost never be all encompassing as to what a contractor will face when its work is in progress. Given these unique, complicated, and costly risks, some project owners will seek to pass liability for such risk onto the those performing the work. Indeed, owners may seek to transfer these unknown risks, including unforeseen conditions, to contractors making the financial burden significant for those bidding the work. Accordingly, it is imperative that the contractor balance the desire to submit a competitive price to win the work with the need to ensure that it has some type of remedy or recovery should it encounter such concealed or differing conditions. Faced with this balancing act, contractors performing excavation and foundation work should be intimately familiar with the site disclaimer, exculpatory, and risk-transferring clauses present in their agreements and the effect that such provisions may have on their ability to recover additional costs and time should they encounter differing conditions.
The outbreak of COVID-19 has been one of the most disruptive events to the global economy in recent memory. Businesses across every sector of the economy are scrambling to determine the legal repercussions of government travel restrictions, labor shortages, supply chain interruptions, financing impacts, and market price
While the global economy grinds to a halt over spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and people disband amidst calls for “social distancing,” these are uncertain times to say the least. Stay safe out there, we will get through this. While the health and welfare of our loved ones and the general public becomes the primary focus, federal contractors and subcontractors face a secondary and yet critical concern—how to address the impacts from COVID-19, which include labor disruptions, supply chain shortages, facility closures, remote work environments and government-mandated restrictions that make it difficult, if not impossible, to move programs and projects forward.
Seyfarth Construction Associate Michael Wagner presented the “Construction Site Data Disclaimers: Who Really Carries the Risk?” webinar for Lorman on August 26, 2019, and an 