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Blogs

SmallGovCon.com

SBA Finalizes “Universal” Small Business Mentor-Protege Program

The SBA has finalized its “universal” mentor-protege program for all small businesses. In a final rule scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on July 25, 2016, the SBA provides the framework for what may be one of the most important small business programs of the last decade–one that will allow all small businesses to obtain developmental assistance from larger mentors, and form joint ventures with those mentors to pursue set-aside contracts. First things first: while I’ve b
SmallGovCon.com

SmallGovCon Week In Review: July 18-22, 2016

I’m back in the office today after a great workshop with the Kansas PTAC where I spoke about Big Changes for Small Contractors–a presentation covering the major changes to the limitations on subcontracting, the SBA’s new small business mentor-protege program, and much more.  If you didn’t catch the presentation, I’ll be giving an encore presentation next week in Overland Park. And since it’s Friday, it must be time for our weekly dose of government contracting news and notes.  In this week’s Sm
SmallGovCon.com

SmallGovCon Welcomes Candace Shields

I am very pleased to announce that Candace Shields is joining our team of government contracts bloggers here at SmallGovCon. Candace comes to us from the Social Security Administration, where she was an Attorney Advisor for several years.  As an associate attorney at Koprince Law LLC, Candace’s practice focuses on federal government contracts law. Please check out Candace’s online biography and great first blog post, and be sure to visit SmallGovCon regularly for the latest legal news and note
SmallGovCon.com

Contractor Ineligible For Reimbursement of Contract Tainted By Kickbacks

The ongoing federal movement to prevent fraud waste, and abuse in the contracting process continues. And as demonstrated in a recent federal court decision, the government retains its ability to refuse to pay a procurement contract tainted by fraud. In the recent decision of Laguna Construction Company, Inc. v. Ashton Carter, Appeal Number 15-1291, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed that a procurement contract tainted by violations of the Anti-Kickback Act is voidable un
SmallGovCon.com

SBA OHA: Joint Ventures Can Be LLCs

Joint ventures can be formally organized as limited liability companies–and that should come as no surprise, given how often joint ventures use the LLC form these days. In a recent size appeal decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals rejected the argument that, because a company was formed as an LLC, its size should not be calculated using the special rule for joint ventures.  Instead, OHA held, the LLC in question was clearly intended to be a joint venture, and the fact that it was an
SmallGovCon.com

GAO: Past Performance Evaluation Must Heed Solicitation’s Definitions

The analysis of an offeror’s past performance is sometimes a crucial part of an agency’s evaluation of proposals. And an agency’s evaluation of past performance is ordinarily a matter of agency discretion. Though broad, this discretion is not unlimited. An agency’s past performance evaluation must be consistent with the solicitation’s evaluation criteria. GAO recently reaffirmed this rule, by sustaining a protest challenging an agency’s departure from its own definition of relevant past per
SmallGovCon.com

GAO: Agency’s Order Exceeded BPA Scope

An agency’s attempt to order under a Federal Supply Schedule blanket purchase agreement was improper because the order exceeded the scope of the underlying BPA. In a recent bid protest decision, GAO held that the agency had erred by attempting to issue a sole-source delivery order for cloud-based email service when the underlying BPA did not envision cloud services. The bid protest, Tempus Nova, Inc., B-412821, 2016 CPD ¶ 161 (Comp. Gen. June 14, 2016), pitted a Microsoft-authorized dealer a
SmallGovCon.com

SmallGovCon Week In Review July 11-15, 2016

I’m back in the office after a week-long family beach vacation around the 4th of July.  Kudos to my colleagues here at Koprince Law for putting out last week’s SmallGovCon Week In Review while I was out having some fun in the sun. This week’s edition of our weekly government contracts news roundup includes a prison term for an 8(a) fraudster, a Congressional focus on full implementation of the Supreme Court’s Kingdomware decision, the release of an important new FAR provision regarding small bu
SmallGovCon.com

Interaffiliate Transactions Exception Remains Narrow — For Now

The U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Hearings and Appeals recently affirmed–for now–its narrow reading of the so-called interaffiliate transactions exception. In a recent size appeal decision, Newport Materials, LLC, SBA No. SIZ-5733 (Apr. 21, 2016), OHA upheld a 2015 decision in which OHA narrowly applied the exception, holding that interaffiliate transactions count against a challenged firm’s annual receipts unless three factors are met: 1) the concerns are eligible to file a con
SmallGovCon.com

Affiliation Allegations Result In $5.8 Million Settlement

A group of companies has agreed to pay $5.8 million to resolve a False Claims Act case stemming from alleged affiliations among the companies. According to a Department of Justice press release, the settlement resolves claims that En Pointe Gov Inc (now known as Modern Gov IT Inc.) falsely certified that it was a small business for purposes of federal set-aside contracts, despite alleged affiliations with four other companies–all of whom will also pay a portion of the settlement. The governm
SmallGovCon.com

GAO: “Minimal” Solicitation Changes Justified Cancellation

An agency was entitled to cancel a solicitation when its needs changed–even though the anticipated changes in its needs “might be characterized as minimal.” In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO confirmed that a procuring agency has broad discretion to cancel a solicitation when the agency’s anticipated needs change, and that discretion extends to cases in which the agency’s changed needs could be addressed by amending the existing solicitation. The GAO’s decision in Social Impact, Inc.,
SmallGovCon.com

GAO: Agency Need Not Perform Calculations For Offeror

An agency ordinarily is not required to perform calculations to determine whether an offeror’s proposal complies with a solicitation’s requirements, according to the GAO. In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO rejected the protester’s argument that, in determining whether the proposal satisfied certain requirements, the agency should have used the information in the proposal to perform certain calculations. The GAO’s decision in Mistral, Inc., B-411291.4 (Feb. 29, 2016) involved a DHS small
SmallGovCon.com

SmallGovCon Week In Review: July 5-8, 2016

Welcome back after a hopefully enjoyable long 4th of July weekend! Although this week is a shortened one, there was no shortage of news floating around the county. This week’s SmallGovCon Week In Review looks at the number of suspensions and debarments of government contractors, a proposed penalty for Pentagon contractors trying to game the system, a case of fraud and much more. Government contractors shouldn’t be celebrating that the number of suspensions and debarments dropped in fiscal 201
SmallGovCon.com

SmallGovCon Week In Review: June 27 – July 1, 2016

Happy (early) 4th of July! I hope you have something fun planned for this long weekend–and all the better if those plans include sunshine, fireworks, and plenty of BBQ. Before the holiday festivities begin, it’s time for our weekly dose of government contracting news and notes. This edition of SmallGovCon Week In Review includes articles about a DoD bribery scandal, the release of the solicitation for the major Alliant 2 IT contracts, a look a the top 100 rankings in federal IT spending and muc
SmallGovCon.com

VA Issues Post-Kingdomware Acquisition Guidance

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
SmallGovCon.com

Small Business Fraud: Guilty Plea In Major SBA Pass-Through Case

A former owner and officer of a large business has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges stemming from an illegal pass-through scheme. According to a Department of Justice press release, Thomas Harper not only conspired to evade limitations on subcontracting, but obstructed justice during a SBA size protest investigation of his company’s relationship with a putative small businesses. The DOJ press release states that Harper is the former owner and officer of MCC Construction Company.  Between
SmallGovCon.com

Agency Need Not Put Dollar Value On “Relevant” Past Performance

An agency’s solicitation was not unreasonably vague where the solicitation defined “relevant” past performance to include projects of “a similar dollar value and contract type.” In a recent bid protest decision, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims rejected a protester’s assertion that the solicitation was required to identify a specific dollar value associated with relevant past performance, finding that the solicitation’s phrasing was sufficient to allow offerors to compete intelligently. The
SmallGovCon.com

SmallGovCon Week In Review June 20-24, 2016

It’s hard to top last week’s government contracting news, which included the major SDVOSB Supreme Court victory in Kingdomware.  But with the Fourth of July just a week and a half away, there is still plenty going on in the world of government contracts law. In this week’s SmallGovCon Week in Review, an SDVOSB’s owner speaks out about his important GAO bid protest win, suspensions and debarments of government contractors dropped in 2015, major changes are coming to the GSA Schedule, HUBZone con
SmallGovCon.com

GAO: Solicitation Terms Trump Standard Industry Practice

An offeror’s proposal must conform to all technical requirements of an agency’s solicitation–even if the offeror believes those requirements to differ from standard industry practice. In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that an agency appropriately rated an offeror’s proposal as technically unacceptable because the offeror failed to conform to certain material solicitation requirements; the offeror’s insistence that those requirements varied from standard industry practice was irrele
SmallGovCon.com

VA Will “Immediately Comply” With Kingdomware Decision

The VA will “immediately comply with the Court’s decision” in Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States, according to a top VA official. In written testimony offered in advance of a Senate committee hearing tomorrow, the Executive Director of the VA’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization tells Congress that the VA will work to implement the Kingdomware decision, including by improving its market research processes. In his testimony, Executive Director Thomas J. Leney
SmallGovCon.com

Awardee’s Bait And Switch Leads To Sustained Protest

Ordinarily, whether an offeror’s proposed personnel actually perform under a contract is a non-protestable matter of contract administration. But GAO will consider the issue when an offeror proposes personnel that it did not have a reasonable basis to expect to provide during contract performance in order to obtain a more favorable evaluation. Such a “bait and switch” amounts to a material misrepresentation that undermines the integrity of the procurement and evaluation. That’s exactly what hap
Don Mansfield's Blog

Has Your Office Been Infiltrated?

In January 1944, the Office of Strategic Services, a wartime intelligence agency and predecessor to the modern Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), issued Strategic Services Field Manual No.3 (Simple Sabotage Field Manual) to its agents to aid the Allied war effort in Europe. The purpose of the classified document was to explain the technique of simple sabotage, outline its possible effects, and present suggestions for inciting and executing it. It introduced the concept of simple sabotage as foll
SmallGovCon.com

SmallGovCon Week In Review: Kingdomware Edition

Yesterday was a huge victory for SDVOSBs and VOSBs, as the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the VA’s “rule of two” is mandatory, and applies to all VA procurements – including GSA Schedule orders. The Kingdomware decision has drawn news coverage and discussion from across the country.  This special Kingdomware edition of the SmallGovCon Week In Review collects some of the many articles on this important precedent. Enjoy! SmallGovCon – Victory! SDVOSBs Win In Kingdomware Supreme Court De

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