DDTC Adds Requirements for Re-Baselined Agreements to Electronic Agreement Guidelines

The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls has added information on electronic agreements submitted as re-baselined agreements to its Guidelines for Preparing Electronic Agreements concerning electronic agreements submitted as re-baselined agreements.

(An agreement “rebaseline” is used as tool to “clean up” a currently approved agreement. The rebaseline allows for an agreement to be brought into compliance with current guidance and policies, integrates numerous cumbersome amendments and /or consolidated provisos levied during the lifecycle of an agreement.)

Requirements for Re-Baselined Agreements Take Effect Immediately

According to the guidelines, the following changes take effect immediately:

DSP-5 Block 12 value must be total value of proposed re-baselined agreement. The value entered in Block 12 of the DSP-5 vehicle must be the total value of the proposed re-baselined agreement (i.e. the value that was previously approved plus any value that is currently being added).

Total value of original paper agreement must be included in next amendment. For currently approved electronic agreements that were re-baselines of previously approved paper agreements, where the value in Block 12 of the DSP-5 vehicle was only the delta value (i.e. amended value of the new re-baselined agreement), applicants must include the total agreement value of the original paper agreement in the next amendment to the electronic agreement. As soon as this “correction” to the DSP-5 value is made, it does not need to be added again to subsequent amendments.

(For example, if the previous agreement was valued at $10M, and the electronic re-baselined agreement added $1M and constitutes the value entered in Block 12 (i.e. $1M), the next time the re-baselined agreement is amended, $10M must be added to the value of the new amendment in Block 12.)

This change allows DDTC to track the total value of applicants’ agreements and provides a single point of reference for this information through the D-Trade 2 System.

Failure to Adhere to Revised Guidelines Could Result in Delays

DDTC warns that failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in a delay in review of an agreement application or a return without action (RWA).

(See ITT’s Online Archives or 05/28/10 news, 10052899 #7, for previous BP summary.)

DDTC contact -- DDTC Response Team (202) 663-1282 or DDTCResponseTeam@state.gov.