SDVOSBs and VOSBs will only be required to obtain reverification every three years under an interim final rule adopted yesterday by the VA.
The VA’s new rule replaces the prior rule, which required reverification every two years. The purpose of the change? To “reduce the administrative burden on SDVOSB/VOSBs regarding participation in VA acquisition set asides for these types of firms.”
When the VA originally finalized its SDVOSB/VOSB program in 2010, VA “anticipated that annual examinatio
The VA’s “rule of two” for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses provides a powerful contracting preference. Thanks to the rule of two, the VA awarded 23.39% of prime contracting dollars to SDVOSBs in Fiscal Year 2019, compared to 4.39% governmentwide.
But the rule of two has its limits. Importantly, before issuing an SDVOSB set-aside, the Contracting Officer must have a reasonable belief that “the award can be made at a fair and reasonable price that offers best value to the U
The VA has proposed expanding its definition of the “good character” required to own or control an SDVOSB or VOSB.
The VA’s proposed rule would exclude many people convicted of felonies (including felonies unrelated to business integrity), which may raise questions about the rule’s fairness. And I have to wonder–is the VA’s proposal consistent with the Congressional directive requiring the VA to use the SBA’s SDVOSB eligibility rules?
As I wrote earlier this week, the VA recently issued a p
The VA has formally proposed to eliminate its SDVOSB and VOSB ownership and control regulations.
Once the proposed change is finalized, the VA will use the SBA’s regulations to evaluate SDVOSB and VOSB eligibility, as required by the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.
As regular SmallGovCon readers know, the differences between the government’s two SDVOSB programs have caused major headaches for veterans. As demonstrated in the recent Veterans Contracting Group saga, the SBA and VA ha
The VA has released an Acquisition Policy Flash providing guidance to VA Contracting Officers on implementing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States.
The Policy Flash suggests that the VA is, in fact, moving quickly to implement the Kingdomware decision–and if that’s the case, it is good news for SDVOSBs and VOSBs.
The Policy Flash begins by reiterating the Supreme Court’s major holdings: namely, that the Rule of Two applies to orders placed unde
Government contractors seeking to be certified through the Vets First Verification Program under the VA’s Center for Verification and Evaluation have to submit a number of documents. We’ve recently been hearing that CVE is taking a closer look at some of these documents, and this is in line with VA’s recent rule change expanding its list of required documents for verification.
Specifically, CVE will examine franchise agreements and similar documents like distributor agreements. Depending on
If the VA Center for Verification and Evaluation denies a company’s application for verification as a service-disabled veteran-owned small business, the applicant has the right to appeal–but the appeal must be filed with the SBA, not the VA.
In a recent case, an applicant tried to appeal its denial to the VA, apparently based on the erroneous advice of a VA employee. By the time the applicant realized that it had appealed to the wrong agency, it was too late.
The decision of the SBA’
The VA Center for Verification and Evaluation unreasonably decertified an SDVOSB based on the results of an SBA SDVOSB decision.
According to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, it was improper for the VA to remove the SDVOSB from the VA’s database without evaluating whether the SBA’s determination was consistent with the VA’s separate SDVOSB requirements.
The Court’s decision in Veterans Contracting Group, Inc. v. United States, No. 17-1015C (2017) was the fourth in a series of battles betwee
In some circles, the VA CVE application process for SDVOSB/VOSB certification has a reputation as being very cumbersome and time-consuming. But while applying for verification isn’t exactly fun, it doesn’t take an extraordinarily long time for most new applicants to be verified. In fact, according to the VA’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, the average processing time is a mere 34 days.
In its Fall 2020 newsletter, the VA OSDBU writes that it has processed nearly
Newcomers to the federal marketplace are often surprised when they learn that eligibility for the VA’s SDVOSB and VOSB preference programs are based on the status of the contractor’s owners–and have nothing to do with how many veterans the contractor employs.
While the SDVOSB/VOSB eligibility rules aren’t changing, VA Contracting Officers now have authority to give preference to offeors that employ veterans on a full-time basis. A new VA Acquisition Policy Flash provides guidance to VA Con
The VA is considering using so-called “tiered evaluations” to address concerns that SDVOSBs and VOSBs may not always offer “fair and reasonable” pricing, even when two or more veteran-owned companies compete for a contract.
In a session yesterday at the National Veterans Small Business Engagement, a panel of VA acquisition leaders described the potential tiered evaluation process. It’s hard to argue that the VA isn’t entitled to fair and reasonable pricing, but judging from the reaction in the
The VA has adopted a Class Deviation to the VAAR, severely restricting the ability of VA Contracting Officers to request waivers of the nonmanufacturer rule–and, even more troubling, suggesting that Contracting Officers need not apply the statutory SDVOSB and VOSB preferences even when the SBA has already granted a class waiver.
You may be wondering “does the VA’s Class Deviation comply with Kingdomware?” Good question.
Before diving into the details of the Class Deviation, let’s step back
Statute A tells you to solve Problem X one way. Statute B tells you solve Problem X a completely different way. How to reconcile these two conflicting mandates? The Federal Circuit encountered this exact problem in 2018, and in response to its holding, the VA has now issued a class deviation to reflect its decision, confirming that the Rule of Two has priority over the AbilityOne Procurement List.
In PDS Consultants, Inc. v. United States, 907 F.3d 1345 (Fed. Cir. 2018), which we discus
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
On December 17, 2018, the Small Business Runway Extension Act became law. As we’ve previously written, this Act had a single purpose: to extend the measurement period of the SBA’s calculation of average annual receipts, from three years to five.
We opined that the Act became effective with the stroke of the President’s pen. Just a few days ago, however, the SBA disagreed—according to the SBA, the 5-year calculation period will not become effective until its regulations are revised.
T
It’s the moment many have been waiting for–SBA has reopened its Certify portal to new applicants seeking admission into the 8(a) Business Development Program. SBA closed the portal to all new 8(a) Program applicants in early August 2023, following a decision from the Federal District Court of the Eastern District of Tennessee that took away applicant’s presumption of social disadvantage for certain designated groups. This resulted in all 8(a) participants being required to submit a social disadv
As we have previously written about in several recent 8(a) articles and updates, which can all be found on our 8(a) landing page here, SBA had previously told all 8(a) participants not pending an 8(a) award to “sit tight” and wait for the go-ahead to submit their social disadvantage narratives. Well, according to SBA’s just-released Certify Help Desk Guidance, it appears that go-ahead was just given to all the (justifiably) anxious 8(a) participants out there hoping to confirm their continued 8(
SBA has issued its rule allowing for an extension of 8(a) program terms by one year, as directed by Congress. The rule will be effective immediately on January 13, (barring some publication delay). Read on for the key terms from the new rule.
Here are the key highlights from the extension rule:
Eligibility. All firms that were in the 8(a) program on March 13, 2020 through September 9, 2020 are eligible for the extension. Firms that were terminated, early graduated, or voluntarily w
Since our post yesterday, the SBA has once again updated the safe harbor deadline for paying back Paycheck Protection Program loans to Monday, May 18.
As a quick reminder of what we discussed more in depth here, on April 28, the SBA published an interim rule on the PPP, which included a “Limited Safe Harbor with Respect to Certification Concerning Need for PPP Loan Request.” Businesses applying for PPP loans are required to certify that the “[c]urrent economic uncertainty makes this lo
A federal judge in Kentucky has enjoined the federal government from enforcing the federal contractor vaccine mandate in three states. As of November 30, 2021, a judged issued a preliminary injunction against the contractor mandate for Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee.
The judge stated:
There were a few reasons to grant the injunction that the judge highlighted.
First, under the Competition in Contracting Act’s goal of full and open competition, “contractors who ‘represent[] the
Lowest price technically acceptable (LPTA) source selection has been on the decline lately. A recent final rule from the FAR Council, effective February 16, 2021, continues this trend. In the rule, the FAR Council implemented additional restrictions on the use of LPTA for non-DoD contracts.
The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) included a number of criteria that must be met for non-defense agencies to utilize LPTA procurements. DoD finalized implementation of related restric
GSA has recently announced that the long anticipated DUNS Number transition to the new Unique Entity ID (UEI) Standard has been pushed back to April 2022.
We first blogged on GSA’s intention to swap out the DUNS numbering system for the UEI Standard in July 2019. We also “demystified” the DUNS-to-UEI-transition in a later blog, getting into a few of the details released in GSA’s Q&A on the topic. As we explained, GSA initially anticipated a transition date of December 2020. But clea
You probably know this already—from what we can tell word is spreading like wildfire—but Monday (Dec. 17, 2018) the president signed the “Small Business Runway Extension Act of 2018” into law.
This changes the period of time the U.S. Small Business Administration uses to measure a business’s size in revenue-based size standards from three years to five years. The law doesn’t say that there will be a period of implementation, so it’s reasonably safe to assume the effect is immediate.
SBA has issued a final rule changing all employee size standards to a 24-month calculation. This rule is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on June 6, 2022, and and will take effect 30 days from the date it is officially published. Let’s take a closer look.
This final rule actually implements two updates to SBA’s rules that, once effective, will change the way SBA calculates a company’s size to determine whether it qualifies as small for SBA’s various assistance programs.
Hello Readers! We have three events this month that we’d like to invite you to attend. All three events are complimentary, so we hope to see you there!
First off, on February 9, we have a webinar about the FAR Supplement for 2022 that is specific to the Army – AFARS. The presenters for this event are Nicole Pottroff and John Holtz. Register here.
Next, on February 16, we have a webinar about the FAR Supplement for 2022 that is specific to the Air Force – AFFARS. The pres