You`re of course free to form your own opinion, but it is actually very cut and dried on a contract by contract basis. If the clause is included, liability falls to the supplier; if not, liability is, in the end, shared (I say ``in the end``, because you`d have to go after both parties in the contract).

SGE - former Manager, Contracts Compliance and Services, Hughes Aircraft Company, then Raytheon; I think I have a little credibility, but we may get some lawyers to chime in that have experienced things differently. I admit that in my experience, this was never a real issue, in that vitually all of our subcontracts included this clause as the clause was included in our Standard Terms and Conditions, i.e., it was company policy to assure its inclusion to avoid risk. And recognize that, in our case, the ``extra`` cost for inclusion was simply passed on to our customer - ultimately the US Gov`t for the most part. And they really couldn`t bitch about it, because THEY won`t accept a contract without the clause.