Category Archives: SBA OHA Decisions

Includes decisions of the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals, including size appeal decisions, service-disabled veteran-owned small business appeal decisions, NAICS code appeal decisions, and women-owned small business appeal decisions.

SBA OHA: Contractors, Check Your Email Carefully (Or Else)

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Everyone has that one friend who has an inbox overflowing with emails. You know the one who just can’t seem to delete any old emails, or go through and sort the legit emails from junk.  Well, when it comes to size protests and appeals, government contractors may want to be extra vigilant about checking their email inboxes and spam folders, just in case an important government email arrives.

In a recent decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals found that the size appeal clock started ticking on the day that the SBA sent an email to a contractor–even though the contractor did “not recall” receiving the email.

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Tax Extensions Don’t Impact Small Business Size, SBA OHA Confirms

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Contrary to common misconception, a contractor’s small business status under a receipts-based size standard ordinarily is based on the contractor’s last three completed fiscal years–not the last three completed fiscal years for which the contractor has filed a tax return.

In a recent size appeal decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals confirmed that a contractor cannot change the relevant three-year period by delaying filing a tax return for the most recently completed fiscal year.

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Familial Relationship Affiliation: SBA Treats Spouses As “One Party”

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One common way that contractors attempt to avoid affiliation is by limiting a particular individual to a minority ownership interest (often 49%).

But as a recent SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals case demonstrates, when a company’s owners are spouses (or other close family members), the SBA may disregard the legal ownership split, and treat the family members as one person for purposes of the affiliation rules.

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Kingdomware Doesn’t Require Recertification For GSA Schedule SDVOSB Set-Aside Orders

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The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States does not require SDVOSBs to recertify their eligibility in connection with individual GSA Schedule task orders.

In a recent decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals held that Kingdomware doesn’t affect the SBA’s SDVOSB eligibility regulation for multiple-award contracts, which specifies that if a company qualifies as an SDVOSB at the time of the initial offer for a multiple-award contract, it ordinarily qualifies as an SDVOSB for all orders issued under the contract.

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Joint Venture Affiliation Exception Isn’t Unlimited, OHA Says

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To encourage joint venturing, the SBA’s size regulations provide a limited exception from affiliation for certain joint venturers: a joint venture qualifies for award of a set-aside contract so long as each venturer, individually, is below the size standard associated with the contract (or one venturer is below the size standard and the other is an SBA-approved mentor, and they have a compliant joint venture agreement). In other words, the SBA ordinarily won’t “affiliate” the joint venturers—that is, add their sizes together—if the joint venture meets the affiliation exception.

Because of this special treatment, it can be easy for the venturers to assume that they are completely exempt from any kind of affiliation. But as the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals recently confirmed, however, the exception isn’t nearly so broad.

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PMO Manager Wasn’t “Key Employee” Under SBA Affiliation Regulations

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A Program Management Office manager was not a “key employee” within the definition of the SBA’s affiliation regulations, according to the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals.

In a recent size appeal decision, OHA found that the fact that a small business’s CEO served as another company’s PMO manager did not result in affiliation between the two companies because the individual in question could not control the second company through his PMO manager role.

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Father/Son Companies Were Affiliated, Says SBA OHA

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Companies controlled by a father and son, respectively, were affiliated under the SBA’s affiliation rules because there was no clear fracture of the family members’ business relationships.

In a recent size appeal decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals held that a son’s company was affiliated with a company owned by his father because the son had worked for many years at the father’s company, the son’s company leased office space from the father’s company, and the two companies engaged in significant amounts of subcontracting.

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