Communications with Treasury employees.

§ 31.216 Communications with Treasury employees. (a) Prohibitions. During the course of any process for selecting a retained entity (including any process using non-competitive procedures), a retained entity participating in the process and its representatives shall not: (1) Directly or indirectly make any offer or promise of future employment or business opportunity to, or engage directly or indirectly in any discussion of future employment or business opportunity with, any Treasury employee with personal or direct responsibility for that procurement. (2) Offer, give, or promise to offer or give, directly or indirectly, any money, gratuity, or other thing of value to any Treasury employee, except as permitted by the Standards of Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, 5 CFR part 2635. (3) Solicit or obtain from any Treasury employee, directly or indirectly, any information that is not public and was prepared for use by Treasury for the purpose of evaluating an offer, quotation, or response to enter into an arrangement. (b) Certification. Before a retained entity enters a new arrangement, the retained entity must certify to the following: (1) The retained entity is aware of the prohibitions of paragraph (a) of this section and, to the best of its knowledge after making reasonable inquiry, the retained entity has no information concerning a violation or possible violation of paragraph (a) of this section. (2) Each officer, employee, and representative of the retained entity who participated personally and substantially in preparing and submitting a bid, offer, proposal, or request for modification of the arrangement has certified that he or she: (i) Is familiar with and will comply with the requirements of paragraph (a) of this section; and (ii) Has no information of any violations or possible violations of paragraph (a) of this section, and will report immediately to the retained entity any subsequently gained information concerning a violation or possible violation of paragraph (a) of this section.