An agency was allowed to assign a Native Hawaiian-owned prime contractor a weakness for its experience because the NHO prime lacked relevant experience–even though the prime’s proposal indicated that it would rely in part on the resources of an experienced NHO sister company.
A recent GAO bid decision demonstrates that while a procuring agency is entitled to consider the experience and past performance of a prime contractor’s affiliates under certain circumstances, the agency is not precluded f
Patent ambiguities present in the solicitation for an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity procurement must be protested prior to the close of proposal submission for the base contract—waiting to protest at the task order level may be too late.
A recent GAO decision shows that when an IDIQ solicitation contains an obvious ambiguity, the rule is “speak now or forever hold your peace.” By the time task order competitions get rolling, the chance to protest will likely be gone.
In Draeger, In
My heart rate has finally come down after the exciting finish to Game Five of the Cubs-Nationals playoff series last night. I caught the first few innings waiting for my flight in Salt Lake City, and the game (which clocked in at more than 4 1/2 hours) was still going when I landed in Kansas City a couple hours later. Thanks in part to the magic of instant replay, my Cubs were victorious, and will continue their World Series title defense against the Dodgers this weekend.
Clearly, my mind is
Ahh, fall. A time for football, hay rides, and returning to campus. Being in a college town, we are always reminded that students are back on campus due to the increased traffic, the homecoming parade, and the increased buzz (no pun intended) around the town. The onset of fall sometimes dredges up unwanted memories about turning in term papers and meeting all the inane requirements insisted upon by the professor.
A recent GAO opinion also brought me back to my college days. Specifically, what h
I am back from a great trip to Salt Lake City, where I spoke at the Utah PTAC Symposium. My talk at the symposium centered on prime/subcontractor teams and joint ventures–topics of ever-increasing interest for small and large contractors alike.
It was wonderful to see so many clients and old friends at the Symposium and meet so many new people, too. A big “thank you” to Chuck Spence and his team at the Utah PTAC for organizing this event and inviting me to speak. And thank you, also, to ever
Ah, joint ventures. Few topics in government contracting these days seem to cause as much confusion. And that’s due, in large part, to some common misunderstandings I hear repeated over and over.
Recently, I joined host Michael LeJeune on the “Game Changers” podcast to talk about some of the most common areas of confusion regarding joint ventures. What is the relationship between joint ventures and the SBA’s new All-Small Mentor-Protege Program? How do the rules for joint venture work share
Like many, I enjoy a good meal out on the town. I tend to order strictly from the menu without any additions or substitutions. Perhaps, it is from all my years of waitressing prior to attending law school. In a recent GAO decision, however, the Navy attempted to order items not on the vendor’s menu only to have GAO determine that the order was beyond the scope of that menu.
In Bluewater Management Group, LLC, B-414785, Bluewater protested the Navy’s award of lodging and transportation services
The baseball playoffs are back, and tonight I’ll be watching my Cubs begin their quest for back-to-back titles. (If you’re not a lifelong Cubs fan, you may not realize how strange it feels to write that previous sentence).
Before the games begin, it’s time for our weekly dose of government contracting news. In this week’s edition of the SmallGovCon Week in Review, the DOJ charges four men with participating in a bribery and kickback conspiracy, the GAO publishes a report finding that many con
So you’ve teamed with an ineligible incumbent contractor to bid on some government work and, to try and maintain continuity, the incumbent would like to retain project management functions. “No big deal,” you think, “I’ll just create a management position to oversee the project manager.”
Actually, it could be a big deal if you’re trying to avoid ostensible subcontractor affiliation. Among the four key factors for determining ostensible subcontractor affiliation is whether the management previou
The SBA has proposed rules to enable contractors to file protests with the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals challenging the SDVOSB or VOSB status of a company included in the VA’s CVE VetBiz database. The same set of proposed rules would allow a contractor to appeal to OHA if the VA denies the contractor’s application for inclusion in the CVE database, or cancels an existing verification.
The proposed rules, once finalized, will offer important new protections for SDVOSBs and VOSBs and are t
It’s a sad day here at Koprince Law. Molly Schemm, who has been my fantastic legal executive assistant since before the firm’s doors even opened, is leaving to pursue new adventures in Alabama. All of us here at the firm will miss Molly dearly–and we won’t be the only ones. Molly’s warmth and professionalism have earned her many friends among our clients, too. We wish Molly the very best.
Before the weekend begins (and Molly begins her drive South), it’s time for your weekly dose of SmallGov
I recall sitting in a mediation one day when the mediator, a judge, told me and my client that we all have lightning in our fingers. He went on to explain that this means, once you sign a contract, it’s like magic in the sense that you can’t get out of the contract and are bound by it, absent certain exceptional circumstances.
I was reminded of this concept while reading a recent opinion from the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals that dealt with the effect of a contractor signing a relea
A dissatisfied U.S. Postal Service customer filed an appeal with the Postal Service Board of Contract Appeals, seeking $50,000 in damages resulting from the Postal Service’s failure to deliver a Priority Mail package.
The appellant contended that it had a contract with the Postal Service, which was breached when the Postal Service failed to deliver the package. But the appellant’s cleverness wasn’t enough to prevail: the Board held that it lacked jurisdiction over the appeal.
The case of Tr
I am back in Lawrence after a great trip late last week to Omaha, where I gave a half-day seminar on joint venturing, teaming and subcontracting for federal government small business contracts.
Thank you very much to Veronica Doga and her team at the Nebraska PTAC for organizing the event and making sure everything ran smoothly. Thanks also to the other sponsors for contributing their time, expertise and meals (like many things in life, in-depth seminars on government contracts always go over
Small government contractors lost an important ally last week–and many of us lost a great friend.
Becky Peterson, the longtime Interim Executive Director of the Association of Procurement Technical Centers, passed away on Thursday. Her legacy lives on in the amazing network of PTACs across the country.
I first met Becky a number of years ago, when she and the APTAC leadership team took a chance, and invited a little-known government contracts associate to give a breakout session at the APTA
Greetings from Omaha, where I’ve just wrapped up a great half-day training session sponsored by the Nebraska PTAC. If you haven’t been to Omaha, you’re missing out: I’m enjoying exploring the Old Market District, and keep wondering when I’ll run into Warren Buffett.
Of course, I’m not about to let a little road trip get in the way of our weekly roundup of government contracts news. In this edition of the SmallGovCon Week In Review, we have an update on an SDVOSB fraud case that we have been fo
In late 2016, the SBA rolled out a fantastic tool to help small business grow in the marketplace.
Here are five things you should know about the SBA All Small Mentor-Protégé Program:
It’s a business development program.
I’m often asked by small business owners, What is the new mentor-protégé program? My answer is simple: it’s a business development program aimed at increasing small business capabilities. Under the All Small Mentor-Protege Program, a mentor provides its protégé with variou
Although a lease may be a “contract” in common parlance, does a lease qualify as a contract under the Contract Disputes Act?
The answer is important, because the Contract Disputes Act provides jurisdiction for the Court of Federal Claims and Board of Contract Appeals to decide challenges to contracting officers’ final decisions. If a lease isn’t a contract under the Contract Disputes Act, government lessors could be in a bind.
The United States Court of Federal Claims recently decided the iss
Provisions in a company’s Shareholders Agreement, requiring the service-disabled veteran to sell his shares back to the company in the event of the veteran’s death or incapacity, were contrary to the SBA’s SDVOSB regulations.
According to a recent SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals decision, these provisions prevented the veteran from having unconditional ownership over the company, because he could not dispose of his shares as he chose. In reaching its conclusion, SBA OHA wrote that Court of
An agency isn’t required to cancel a small business set-aside solicitation if the agency learns that one of the small businesses upon whom the set-aside decision rested is no longer small.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO confirmed that an agency need not redo its “rule of two” determination when a potential small business competitor outgrows its size standard–even if it could effectively convert a particular solicitation into a “rule of one.”
The GAO’s decision in Synchrogenix Info
As we get closer to the end of the fiscal year, things can get a little crazy in the world of government contracts. This week is no exception, with plenty of news and commentary in our SmallGovCon Week In Review.
In this mid-September edition, court documents reveal a bribery scheme centered on a former VA OSDBU official, the GSA has relaxed certain contracting rules to speed efforts to rebuild after Hurricane Harvey, the OFPP is planning a third in its series of highly-regarded “mythbusters”
Contracting officers have wide discretion to determine that a business can perform the work in question—even if the business is about to enter bankruptcy.
In a recent GAO protest, an unsuccessful offeror challenged just such a determination, saying that there is no way the awarded business could perform because it was nearly bankrupt. But according to the GAO, so long as the agency considered the pending bankruptcy, it was not improper to make an award.
The case, SaxmanOne, LLC, B-414748 (Au
What goes around, comes around.
The government sometimes refuses to pay a contractor for a modification when the government official requesting the modification lacks appropriate authority. But contractual authority isn’t a one-way street benefiting only the government. A recent decision by the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals demonstrates that a contractor may not be bound by a final waiver and release of claims if the individual signing on the contractor’s behalf lacked authority.
A communication to a contracting officer taking issue with an awardee’s size can be treated as a size protest–even if the offeror making the communication didn’t intend to file a size protest.
That’s what happened in Sea Box, Inc., SBA No. SIZ-5846 (Aug. 7, 2017), when an offeror accidentally initiated a size protest after losing an award.
Sea Box involved a procurement by the GSA for temporary shelters. The procurement was set-aside for small businesses under NAICS code 332311, Prefabricated
Sometimes you may find yourself running late. It happens to the best of us for a multitude of reasons. But what happens to federal contractors when they are running late in performing under a contract and there is “no reasonable likelihood” of timely performance?
Unfortunately for contractors in this position, as illustrated by a recent Civilian Board of Contract Appeals (CBCA) decision, the result may be a default termination.
In Affiliated Western, Inc. v. Department of Veterans Affairs, C
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