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SmallGovCon Week in Review: April 3-7, 2023

Happy Friday, Readers. We hope you have had a great week. It’s a beautiful day in Lawrence, Kansas and it should be a great weekend for Easter egg hunting if you are so inclined. We hope you can spend time with family and friends this weekend and enjoy the spring weather. There were some important announcements in federal government contracting this week including the continued saga of CIO-SP4 and anticipation over the Oasis+ contracts. You can read more about that and other federal governm

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

Technically Unacceptable Offeror Cannot Protest Awardee’s Size, Says OHA

In a recent size determination appeal, OHA confirmed that an offeror found technically unacceptable does not have standing to protest an awardee’s size under SBA’s regulations. As such, OHA denied the appeal and affirmed the Area Office’s size determination dismissing the size protest on such grounds. Ekagra Partners, LLC, SBA No. SIZ-6189, 2023 (Feb. 3, 2023), involved a Department of Commerce, Enterprise Services, solicitation for Commerce Acquisition for Transformational Technology Se

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

SBA Publishes Notice of SBIR and STTR Program Policy Directives Update

The Small Business Administration recently published a notice of an amendment to the Policy Directives for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program on April 3, 2023. The intent of the amendment is to incorporate a template that federal agencies may use to request information from SBIR and STTR applicants that the applicants are statutorily required to disclose. The revisions will be effective May 3, 2023, unless the SBA recei

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

SmallGovCon Week in Review: March 27-31, 2023

Happy Friday, Readers! We hope you have had a productive week and are finishing out the month of March strong. There was, of course, lots of activity in the federal government contracting world this week including more buzz around federal cybersecurity issues and the SBA announced that they will be hosting a virtual summit for National Small Business Week. You can read more about these topics, and other federal government related news, in the articles below. Have a great weekend! Login.

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

The Dog Ate my Addendum: Don’t Neglect your Joint Venture Addendum, says OHA

Spring is upon us, and for many of us, it evokes thoughts of friendly weather, and new life. In the world of federal contracting, new life is often seen through the forming of new joint ventures. As most contractors and readers of this blog know, there are many requirements placed on a joint venture that intends to bid on set-asides, and most deal with the content of a joint venture agreement between the joint venture members. In a recent case, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) review

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

Nicole Pottroff Weighs in on Bias in the Procurement World in Forbes Article

Tuesday, March 29, Forbes.com published a fascinating article written by Dr. Gleb Tsipursky entitled, Prevent Costly Procurement Disasters: 6 Science-Backed Techniques For Bias-Free Decision Making. In the article, I weigh in on the subject of bias in the bid selection process for federal procurements. I discuss some of the ways the ever-developing science behind implicit bias could potentially be utilized in bid protests challenging source selection decisions as biased–which is currently one of

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

The HUBZone 35% Residency Requirement in Between Certifications

It is well established that, in order to be eligible for HUBZone certification or recertification, one of the requirements is that 35% of a company’s employees must reside in a HUBZone. That part is (relatively) straightforward. But, as we all know, employees might come and go at any time. This raises a few questions about what the requirement is when a company is preparing to bid on contracts as well as when performing them. We explore this question here. As we noted above, “[i]n order

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

SmallGovCon Week in Review: March 20-24, 2023

Happy Spring, Readers! I don’t know about you but I’m looking forward to warmer temperatures and a lot more sunshine in the coming months. We have had a lot of grey, gloomy weather here in Kansas lately and I feel that we are all ready for some fun, outside activities. Spring is a great time of transition and speaking of transition, I will now transition to some federal government contracting news this week. Have a great weekend and we hope you can enjoy spring in your neck of the woods.

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

GAO Sustains Protest Based on Faulty Past Performance Evaluation

Past performance is a key part of most government proposal evaluations. Generally, a federal agency gets a lot of discretion in evaluating past performance. But that discretion is not without limits. In a recent decision, GAO sustained a protest where the agency failed to properly evaluate past performance examples for being similar in size. In General Dynamics Information Technology, Inc., B-421290.2 (March 1, 2023), GDIT (or protester) protested a task order award to GovCIO, LLC (or

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

Third Time’s the Charm: Protest Sustained by COFC Due to Failure to Conduct Discussions and Flawed Price Reasonableness Evaluation

Proving that an agency acted improperly in its source selection process can be a difficult task for any protester. In theory, for a best value tradeoff decision, the agency’s decision and the process to come to that decision seems easy: the agency does a tradeoff between cost and non-cost factors, and that which is most advantageous to the government is awarded. How hard could it be? And the decisions handed down by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Court of Federal Claims (COFC

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

SmallGovCon Week in Review: March 13-16, 2023

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Historical reports say the Irish have been celebrating St. Patrick’s Day for over 1,000 years. They would feast on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage–not quite sure when the green beer was added into the festivities! The first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place not in Ireland but in America on March 17, 1601 in St. Augustine, Florida. Although not as old as St. Augustine’s, our city of Lawrence, Kansas is also preparing for a St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

Back to Basics: Debriefings

Debriefings are a crucial part of the complicated world of bidding on Government contracts. They can provide wonderful insight to contractors on where they can improve, where their proposals were strong, and in cases, may provide information that could indicate to a contractor that a bid protest may be warranted. Therefore, it is vitally important for contractors to understand what Debriefings are, what they can and can’t provide you, and why they matter. Previously, we here at SmallGovCon discu

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

SmallGovCon Week in Review: March 6-10, 2023

Happy Friday Readers! If you are a college basketball fan, then I’m sure you are as excited about March Madness as we are here at SmallGovCon. With so many really great teams competing for that national championship trophy, it’s sure to be an exciting tournament. Before you move your attention to basketball, let’s take a look at the happenings in the federal government world this week, including some information on the new iteration of the GSA OASIS vehicle. Check out those articles, amo

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

Back to Basics: Teaming Agreements

Teaming agreements are a great tool for establishing the prime-subcontractor relationship in order to jointly pursue government contracts. They can protect each party’s rights, set performance expectations, demonstrate regulatory compliance, and reduce the likelihood of disputes down the line. But no matter how common teaming agreements have become, many contractors still find them to be a bit of a mystery. This is probably due to the fact that neither SBA’s regulations nor the FAR speak to team

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

SBA Turns Spotlight on its Size and Status Protest Process

The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently took a look at SBA’s recent small business size and status protests to determine “whether the SBA had effective controls in place to (1) ensure protest decisions were properly enforced and to (2) monitor the protest process.” Overall, the OIG had positive things to say about the the protest process. What’s interesting for small business federal contractors are some of the numbers from this report, detailed below

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

Govology Webinar: Understanding & Obtaining HUBZone Certification (2023 Update), March 21, 2023, 1:00PM EDT

The SBA revamped its HUBZone rules in the last few years, making several changes to the HUBZone program. However, we continue to see updates to how SBA interprets these rules as it puts out policy guidance frequently. In this webinar, government contracts attorneys Nicole Pottroff and John Holtz will discuss these changes and SBA’s related guidance.  If you’re a HUBZone contractor trying to remain compliant or have thought about obtaining a HUBZone certification, please join us. Register her

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

SmallGovCon Week in Review: February 27-March 3, 2023

Happy Friday and Happy March Madness. The country sure has been getting some wacky weather this week as spring is set to arrive soon. Here in Kansas, we are starting to see the first green sprouts emerging from the ground and everyone is getting really excited about the NCAA basketball tournament. Time to prepare your bracket and cheer on your favorite team as they fight to advance to the next level. There were several announcements this week in federal government contracting, including imp

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

GAO Sustain: Agency Failed to Document Prior Experience Evaluation

Source selection decisions are often a point of contention for federal government contractors, and rightfully so. Contractors spend large amounts of time and resources putting together a bid in a competition that likely doesn’t have room to make an award to each bidder. This usually results in one or more awardees, as well as one or more disappointed bidders. Naturally, those disappointed bidders often question whether the agency’s source selection decision, and its method for getting there, was

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

Showing Your Work: Protest of Evaluation Sustained for Lack of Explanation by Agency

We at SmallGovCon have explored some examples of protests where an unfortunate oversight by a contractor has been the difference between winning and losing. This, of course, can be very frustrating to contractors, especially considering that federal agencies often get leeway where contractors wouldn’t. But federal agencies, too, make mistakes, and even simple ones can be enough for a successful protest. This was the case in a January 2023 decision by GAO. In June 2021, the Secret Service

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

Free Virtual Workshop: Legislative Changes that May Affect Your Small GovCon Business, February 28, 3:00-5:00PM CST

The government contracting legal landscape has gone through many important changes in 2022 and the first part of 2023, including new small business rules, SDVOSB certification requirements, recent domestic preference changes under the Buy American Act, key provisions of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act and other laws passed in 2022, and much more.  In this session, we will provide a comprehensive update on the most important government contracting legal changes in 2022, and the projec

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

SmallGovCon Week in Review: February 20-24, 2023

Happy Friday, Readers! Can you believe that February is almost over? I guess that means we are one month closer to Spring. Stay safe if you are in the areas of the country getting pounded by more snowfall. In the middle of the country, the thermometer has been going up and down so much on a daily basis, we just never know what we will get. That’s Kansas for you. We have included a few news articles on the federal government contracting issues this week. There is some good thoughts this we

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

SBA Says Goodbye to Reasonable Commute Rule for SDVOSBs

SBA, without much commentary, recently removed the so-called reasonable commute requirement for service-disabled veterans (SDV) who owned or managed service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSB). This rule used to require that veterans live near the principal office or job site, but it sometimes caused issues for SDVOSBs because of how restrictive it could be. Thankfully, SBA has removed this requirement. Since SBA brought little attention to this change, we want to highlight it in th

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

SBA Final Rule Updates Employee-Based Size Standards, but not for Nonmanufacturer Rule

This month, SBA issued a final rule updating its size standards for multiple NAICS codes in the manufacturing industries and industries with employee-based size standards in other sectors (except wholesale trade and retail trade). As the final rule explains in great detail, SBA increased some of the NAICS code’s size standards and retained others. Additionally, SBA decided to retain an employee based size standard for the nonmanufacturer rule. Let’s take a closer look. Under this final r

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

Webinar Event: Regulatory Updates in Government Contracting, February 23, 10:00-11:30am MST

The government contracting legal landscape has gone through many important changes in 2022 and the first part of 2023, including new small business rules, SDVOSB certification requirements, recent domestic preference changes under the Buy American Act, key provisions of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act and other laws passed in 2022, and much more.  In this session, John Holtz and I, will provide a comprehensive update on the most important government contracting legal changes in 2

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

UTSA Apex Accelerator Webinar: Government Contracts Legal Update 2023, February 21, 2023, 10:00-11:30am CST

The government contracting legal landscape has gone through many important changes in 2022 and the first part of 2023, including new small business rules, SDVOSB certification requirements, recent domestic preference changes under the Buy American Act, and much more.  In this session we will provide a comprehensive update on the most important government contracting legal changes. This is a “no-cost” Training.  Register here. The post UTSA Apex Accelerator Webinar: Government Contracts Legal U

Koprince Law LLC

Koprince Law LLC

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