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SmallGovCon.com

A blog by Koprince Law LLC in General

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Entries in this blog

End of the Line for Transmutation Agreements in 8(a) Program

We at SmallGovCon have analyzed a number of key updates from the recent SBA final rule concerning HUBZone Program Updates and Clarifications, and Clarifications to Other Small Business Programs. But, with the rule covering many issues, there are aspects we didn’t cover everything. One small change could impact a number of companies seeking 8(a) Program certification or existing 8(a) Program Participants changing their ownership. The change affects married business owners in community property st

SmallGovCon Week in Review: January 27-31, 2025

It’s Friday and time for another week in review, on this last day of January. We are so excited that our Kansas City Chiefs will be playing, once again, in the Super Bowl. We’re looking forward to the championship game against an impressive Philadelphia Eagles team, and a chance for the Chiefs to become the first team in NFL history to win three in a row. It should be a fun game. And now we turn from football to this week in federal government contracting news, there is news of many executiv

Webinar Event! Top 21 Legal Mistakes in Federal Government Contracting, February 13, 2025, 12:00pm-1:30pm CST

Federal contracting rules and laws are complicated, and the rules aren’t always intuitive. Many contractors make legal mistakes routinely, involving everything from completing SAM profiles to calculating small business size to communicating with government contracting officers. Federal government contracts attorneys, Nicole Pottroff & Annie Birney of Koprince McCall Pottroff, will discuss the top 21 most common legal mistakes that contractors make time and time again. You will learn what the

Making Unsuccessful Protesters Pay? Enhanced Pleading Standards? A Look at Proposed Changes to GAO Protest Rules Under the 2025 NDAA

Back in 2017, in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress passed a limited program for GAO protests of Department of Defense contracts where certain large contractors would have to reimburse the DoD for the cost of processing unsuccessful GAO protests. We reviewed that rule here. Congress repealed that provision with the 2021 NDAA. Now, the “losing protester pays” system is back with a vengeance. The 2025 NDAA creates a similar provision, but now the language appears to apply

DoD, GSA, and NASA Establish New Size and Status Rerepresentation Rules

The FAR Council recently published a final rule dealing with small business certification issues, effective on January 17, 2025. SBA had updated its recertification rules as discussed in this SmallGovCon.com blog. This final rule came about to ensure that certain parts of the FAR and SBA rules are consistent. The change? Adding additional circumstances that require an awardee to rerepresent its size and/or socioeconomic status for orders placed under a multiple-award contract (MAC) per FAR 52.21

SmallGovCon Week in Review: January 20-24, 2025

Happy Friday, Readers! We hope you had a great week and are ready for the weekend. We are looking forward to our weather finally warming up and melting off some of this snow in the next few days. The respite from the very cold temperatures will be a nice change. Have a good weekend in your neck of the woods! This week in federal government contracting… SBA Administrator Guzman Outlines New MySBA Digital Experience Transforming How Business Owners Interact with SBA A regular Fede

GAO Says: Solicitation + Q&A = Material Requirements

Recently, GAO sustained a bid protest, finding that the awardee did not meet the material requirements of the solicitation. The GAO held that the requirements of the solicitation included an agency’s answer during the question and answer (Q&A) period. In ATP Gov, LLC, the United States Air Force (the Agency) issued a solicitation for portable satellite terminals, related equipment, and associated services. Two of the solicitation’s requirements are relevant here. First, the termi

Why File: A GAO Bid Protest Intervention

When contractors think of GAO Bid Protests, most think of the process from the perspective of the protester. However, the contract awardee is not without a voice in the bid protest process at GAO. While the agency will generally defend the contract award decision regardless, the awardee itself can also have a seat at the table. In this installment in our “Why File” series, we will explore why a contractor would want to file an intervention in a GAO Bid Protest. First, what even is an int

New OCI Rule Contains Big Changes

The proposed OCI rule implementing the Preventing Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition Act has just dropped. We started discussing the Act back in early 2023 after it was passed in late 2022, and I outlined my predictions at the Court of Federal Claims judicial conference. This 108-page rule will propose some major changes for organizational conflicts of interest. Here is a summary of some of the big changes proposed in this new rule. Stay tuned for more updates on SmallGo

SmallGovCon Week in Review: January 13-17, 2025

Happy Friday! We hope you had a great week. We are already halfway through January and looking forward to see if the Chiefs can finish the three-peat! The federal landscape has been busy, with updates spanning Buy America, small business dollars, and procurement complications, including Polaris protests. You can read more about these topics in the articles below. Have a great weekend! Buy America Requirements for Manufactured Products GSA awards $210 million contract for new e

Event! MyGovWatch Live: The B2G Roundtable, January 22, 2025, 12:00pm CDT

If you’re interested in winning more B2G business through the bid process, but need some answers, join this live forum and talk about this market with people who have helped hundreds of companies win government contracts. This month’s co-hosts are Koprince McCall Pottroff’s own Nicole Pottroff and Stephanie Ellis. The event host, Nick Bernardo, President & Founder of MyGovWatch.com, has over 20 years of experience helping companies of all sizes figure out how to find, compete for, and ac

SmallGovCon Week in Review: January 6-10, 2025

It’s Friday and time for another week in review! We hope you have had a great week and are safe from the extreme weather conditions the country seems to be experiencing right now. We are still digging out from the blizzard sent our way by the polar vortex. We also hope that our readers in California are safe and well. Our thoughts go out to all of you that are dealing with those devastating wildfires. This week in federal government contracting news had some interesting stories including wi

Govology Webinar: An Introduction to Government Small Business Certifications (2025 Update), January 21, 2025, 1:00 pm EST

Steven Koprince, Govology legal analyst and retired founder of Koprince McCall Pottroff will be presenting this webinar. In this course he provides a big-picture overview of small business certifications in the government marketplace and you will learn about various federal small business certification programs, including Small Business Self Certification, Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) & 8(a), Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB), H

Game Changers for Government Contractors: Understanding the Small Business Rule of Two

Thanks to Michael LeJeune for hosting me on his podcast, Game Changers for Government Contractors. It’s always great talking to Michael and this is a very pertinent topic for a lot of contractors. The Rule of Two is undergoing some changes in proposed rules and federal contractors need to be aware of those changes. In this episode, I discuss what the Rule of Two is, how it impacts small business set-asides, and the recent changes affecting task orders under multiple award contracts (MACs). We al

Year in Review: Top SmallGovCon Posts of 2024

Happy New Year, SmallGovCon readers! As we look forward to the new updates, decisions, and commentary in 2025, it’s also a good time to reflect on the important and well-read posts from 2024. This post revisits our most popular blog posts from 2024. Below, we summarize the blogs written in 2024 that were the most visited as well as the perennial favorites from years past that were the most viewed in 2024. It’s a good chance to look back on the important articles from 2024, and those topics o

Less Extraordinary: Revised SBA Rule Gives Clear Guidance on Extraordinary Circumstances

Many of the SBA’s small business programs have restrictions on what are commonly referred to as “extraordinary circumstances” or “extraordinary actions.” It’s a topic that we have discussed many times before, including this blog post discussing a case at SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals, reviewing extraordinary circumstances in the context of control and operating agreements. SBA often discusses extraordinary circumstances in the context of joint venture control, where the managing venturer

SmallGovCon Week in Review: December 30-January 3, 2025

Happy Friday and Happy New Year to all of our SmallGovCon readers! We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and are looking forward to 2025. As we look forward to the new year and close out the old, there are sure to be lots of developments in the federal contracting space. So, as you batten down the hatches for the polar vortex, it’s time for a nice, warm fire, maybe some hot cocoa and the latest in federal contracting news. Stories included a new law on custom software, and rules on

A Glitch In Time? GAO Denies Late Proposal Protest for Lack of Systemic Outages with Agency System 

Both GAO and the federal agencies take proposal deadlines with the utmost seriousness. We have discussed a few other examples of late proposals being denied by GAO before. Now, we have another one. This time, the protester put forth the argument that its lateness was not its fault. Rather, it was caused by issues with the agency’s proposal receipt system. Unfortunately for the protester, GAO did not accept this argument. Here, we will go into how it arrived at that decision.  In NAG Mari

Happy Holidays to All, Big and Small, from SmallGovCon!

Happy Holidays from all of us at SmallGovCon. Throughout the year, we’ve enjoyed bringing you the best updates and analysis out there for small business federal contractors and their partners. We wish all of you a great end to 2024 and have a great holiday season! The post Happy Holidays to All, Big and Small, from SmallGovCon! first appeared on SmallGovCon - Government Contracts Law Blog.View the full article

Strategies for Dealing with a Government Shutdown

Shuttering of the government (or parts of the government) following appropriations lapses has become an increasingly common phenomenon in recent times. Continuing resolutions have become a recurring stopgap measure. Funding lapses interrupt the usual predictability of government operations, which harms both agencies and federal contractors that are left in limbo with stop work orders. Unfortunately, unlike many other topics, the FAR has little say when it comes to procedures for contractors

SmallGovCon Week in Review: December 16-20, 2024

Hello, blog readers! Well, everyone is on pins and needles to see if the federal government will face a shut down. As you may have heard, the House rejected the proposed government funding, so now we wait to see if the third proposal will be agreed upon today to keep things going. Stay tuned! In other news, our office is very excited about the Bluey movie–can’t wait for 2027! And now, more on that and other news from the federal government, including cybersecurity updates, AI, and updates to

No Protesting Canceled Contracts, Says COFC

Often contractors will protest an award, then learn that the contract at issue was cancelled by the government due to corrective action. When that occurs, contractors of course feel as if their concerns were not resolved, or the protested other parties were let off the proverbial hook. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims recently explained that if that happens, there is no procurement left to protest, even if there are related research and development projects or actions continuing within the Gover

News Flash: SBA Releases Final HUBZone Rule Update, Other Small Business Changes

SBA will be releasing the final rule for the HUBZone Program Updates and Clarifications, and Clarifications to Other Small Business Programs on December 17, 2024. As we have discussed, this rule made a lot of changes to the HUBZone program. But it also updated a lot of other small business rules. Below are the details on some of these significant changes. This rule will be effective on January 16, 2025. For an overview of the proposed rule, check out this post. Here are some of the main

SmallGovCon Week in Review: December 9-13, 2024

Hello and happy Friday! We’ve been getting some chilly temperatures here in the Midwest and it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. The lights are up downtown and the city is looking very festive! We hope you are enjoying the holiday season in your neck of the woods. We also finished up our last webinar of the season, the 2024 Government Contracting Year-End Review with Govology. Check it out to learn all the updates from 2024 to get ready for 2025. This week in federal government cont

NAICS Code Appeal: OHA Says Agency’s Assignment of Code Doesn’t Have to be Perfect

When a contractor believes an agency assigned the wrong North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code to a solicitation, it can file an appeal with the SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA). However, for OHA to correct the NAICS code, the contractor must show the contracting officer’s assignment was clearly erroneous. As we’ve discussed, counting just those NAICS code appeals decided on the merits, about 45% were granted, per a GAO report.  In recent NAICS appeal Dellew

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