The government’s policy encouraging prompt payment to small business subcontractors has been extended to December 31, 2017.
In a Memorandum issued on January 11, 2017 by the Office of Management and Budget, OMB Director Shaun Donovan ordered that the popular policy be extended to the end of the year, and provided additional direction to agencies regarding their quarterly reports on implementing the accelerated payment policies.
The OMB’s accelerated payment policy was originally implemented
There is a lot of excitement brewing here in our neck of the woods. We are cautiously awaiting a potential ice storm that is expected to hit town today and roll through the weekend, our Kansas Jayhawks are in action against Oklahoma State on Saturday and a win will likely seal them as the new number 1 seed in the polls and of course the Kansas City Chiefs have their AFC divisional round game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. I’m no fan of cold weather, so I’ll be watching the Jayhawks f
Two Missouri men have been indicted for allegedly perpetrating an SDVOSB “rent-a-vet” scheme to fraudulently obtain 20 contracts totaling more than $13.8 million.
According to a Department of Justice press release, the veteran in question nominally served as the company’s President, but did not control the company’s strategic decisions or day-to-day management–in fact, the veteran apparently was working full-time for the DoD instead of managing the SDVOSB.
The indictment contends that Jeffre
An offeror submitting a proposal under a solicitation designated with the Information Technology Value Added Resellers exception to NAICS code 541519 must qualify as a small business under a 150-employee size standard–even if the offeror is a nonmanufacturer.
In a recent decision, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims held that an ITVAR nonmanufacturer cannot qualify as small based solely on the ordinary 500-employee size standard under the nonmanufacturer rule, but instead must also qualify as smal
Hello, blog readers and happy Friday. Can you believe it’s already March? In just a few short weeks, spring will (finally) be here!
We hope that you’re gearing up for a nice weekend. But before you punch out, let’s take a look at the-week that was. In this edition of the Week in Review, Congress passed a short term spending measure to avoid another government shutdown and a report was released citing that federal employee whistleblower complaints have dropped, and Congress is trying to impr
A procuring agency erred by failing to seek clarification of obvious errors in an offeror’s proposal, according to a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
In Level 3 Communications, LLC v. United States, No. 16-829 (2016), the Court held that although a Contracting Officer has discretion over whether to seek clarification of a proposal, this discretion is not unlimited. By failing to clarify obvious errors, the Contracting Officer’s decision was arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse
By the middle of this year, the U.S. Small Business Administration should have a strategy in place to assist small businesses with cybersecurity.
The 2017 National Defense Authorization Act is chock full of interesting legal changes for government contractors, and although we have chronicled it in depth, that does not mean there is not necessarily more to be mined from the whopping 1,587-page legislation.
Buried in section 1841, the 2017 NDAA contains an interesting directive for the new hea
It is inauguration day, and we are beginning a new chapter in America’s history. We’re expecting lots of government contracting changes in short order (beginning with repeals of some of the Obama Administration’s Executive Orders), so check in with us here on SmallGovCon regularly for updates.
As we honor our nation’s unparalleled tradition of peaceful transitions of power, it’s time for the SmallGovCon Week In Review. In this week’s edition, two commentators weigh in on the GAO’s denial of fo
The FAR Council has added a new provision to the FAR to restrict the permissible terms of employee confidentiality agreements.
Effective January 19, 2017, contractors wishing to do business with the federal government will need to certify that they do not limit the ability of their employees to report waste, fraud, or abuse to appropriate government officials.
The final rule creates a new FAR 3.909 and two new FAR clauses, FAR 52.203-18 (Prohibition on Contracting with Entities that Require
A recent GAO decision should serve to caution offerors to be careful what they include with their proposals. Any information that contradicts the proposal or otherwise does not conform to the terms of the solicitation could result in disqualification.
In Independent Systems, Inc., B-413246 (Comp. Gen. Sept. 15, 2016), GAO held that the agency could reasonably disqualify an offeror based on extraneous information the offeror included with the intent of providing the agency with more information,
Join our attorneys, Nicole Pottroff and John Holtz, on the latest edition of MyGovWatch, now on YouTube. This podcast, hosted by Nick Bernardo, covered a wide variety of current government contracting topics and answered all the right questions. From the migration of the Veteran Small Business Program from the VA to the SBA (and the first appeal reviewing SBA’s SDVOSB “grace period”)–to the most-recently updated size standards and the assignment of (the often incorrect) NAICS codes to federal co
The 2024 NDAA is directing quite a change in past performance evaluations for offerors in Department of Defense acquisitions. Historically, an offeror’s affiliate’s past performance is not automatically considered along with the offeror’s proposal, although an agency could consider it. The 2024 NDAA, though, has actually mandated a change within the DFARS that will up-end this long-held tenet for Department of Defense contracts.
Some background is probably warranted before discussing th
Federal construction contracts incorporate the FAR’s payment and performance bonding requirements as a matter of law, even if the solicitation omits these bonding provisions.
In a recent Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals decision, K-Con, Inc., ASBCA Nos. 60686, 60687, a contractor ran headlong into construction bonding issues when the Army demanded payment and performance bonding for two of its construction contracts despite there being no bonding requirements in either of the contracts.
It has been a busy week across the country as we get close to wrapping up the first month of 2017. Here in Lawrence, we’re gearing up for Saturday’s blue blood match-up between Kansas and Kentucky. Both teams are coming off losses and Kentucky is looking to avenge its loss to KU last year. It should be a great game.
Before we get to Saturday basketball, it’s time for our weekly Friday look at government contracting news. In this week’s SmallGovCon Week In Review, articles about what contractors
While losing a procurement is never easy, many contractors will learn some valuable lessons from a debriefing. On top of that, a debriefing can delay bid protest filing deadlines at GAO. However, recently, GAO clarified that the bid protest filing deadline delay for debriefings only applies to GAO protests. A protestor found this out the hard way after a pre-award debrief, and multiple protest actions.
Given the importance that debriefings (or debriefs, for short) hold for contactors to
Just as agencies have established goals to award a certain percentage of their procurements to small businesses and businesses participating in socio-economic programs like the 8(a) Program, large business contractors must establish goals to include small business subcontractors in their pool of subcontractors for unrestricted awards over the applicable threshold in FAR 19.702 ($750,000 for most contracts, $1.5 million for construction contracts). While the specific goal will vary with each cont
In this webinar, Nicole Pottroff and I will cover the most important legal developments for federal contractors in 2023. We will discuss some new small business rules, updates to the 8(a) rules and application procedures, joint venture changes, updated SDVOSB certification requirements, key provisions of the recent National Defense Authorization Act, and more. Hope you can join us. Register here.
The post Govology Webinar Event: 2023 Government Contracting Year in Review, December 7, 2023, 1:0
Happy Friday! Next week is Thanksgiving and we want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support of SmallGovCon. We always strive to provide helpful content and we appreciate all the wonderful feedback that we have received from our readers. We hope you have a great Thanksgiving and are able to spend some time with friends and family.
This week in federal government contracting news include a plan to fund the government (hear that one before?), AI and its effect on governme
When I started writing SmallGovCon back in 2012, I worried that there might not be enough happening in government contracts law to support a robust blog. Needless to say, I’m not worried anymore.
We’re rapidly approaching SmallGovCon‘s 1000th post (this one is No. 990). To celebrate, we’re offering one lucky reader the chance to win a free webinar on the government contracting legal topic of your choice. For details (and to enter) just click here.
What do you like about SmallGovCon? We wan
As a general rule, an agency is only required to evaluate a fixed-price offer for reasonableness (that is, whether the price is too high). Agencies are not required to evaluate fixed-price offers for realism (that is, whether the price is too low) and, in fact, cannot do so unless the solicitation advises offerors that a realism evaluation will be conducted.
GAO recently reaffirmed this principle when it denied a protest challenging an agency’s refusal to consider the realism of offerors’ fixed
President Donald Trump won’t repeal former President Obama’s 2014 Executive Order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
According to CNN and other news outlets, the new Administration will allow Executive Order 13672 to remain on the books. The Executive Order, which was codified in the FAR in 2015, adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected categories under the FAR’s Equal Opportunity clause, FAR 5
Whether you are a small, medium or even a large contractor seeking to team with small businesses, this course will discuss the different regulations you must follow, the different small business programs set up by the SBA, the advantages and disadvantages of the JV & Mentor Protégé programs, plus other topics of interest. This live virtual event will be hosted by Larry Allen and Nicole Pottroff and Stephanie Ellis will be joining Larry for the afternoon session. We hope you will consider att
Having been a part of the federal contracting community for close to 30 years, I’ve seen quite a few changes in policy and process that have both improved and degraded the ability of small business concerns to participate as contractors and subcontractors. I’m not referring solely to changes where the language targeted small business, I’m also including those intending to change how business is done based on a specific commodity, contract cost type, procurement method, agency mission or governme
In the nearly five years (and almost 1,000 posts) since SmallGovCon began publishing, we’ve grown from a single-author blog written by yours truly, to a multi-author website featuring regular contributions from my colleagues here at Koprince Law LLC.
Growing our authorship base has allowed SmallGovCon to bring our readers expanded content that would have been very difficult for me to manage alone–like the 16 posts we wrote on the 2017 NDAA in little over a month. But as we continue to grow, I t
Super Bowl Sunday is just a few days away. Whether you are a fan of football or are just tuning in for the commercials, I hope you have a relaxing day with friends and family. Next week, I’ll be heading to Orlando for the 2017 National 8(a) Association Small Business Conference where I have been selected as a panelist to discuss “Two is Better than One: JVs, MPs, and Teaming Agreements.” If you are planning to attend the conference I hope you will come say hello at my Koprince Law booth on the e
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