Subcontracting is a hot topic in the federal government contracting world. Large businesses placing bids on federal procurements are often required to have a small business subcontracting plan, while small businesses are limited to exactly how much work they can subcontract out. The FAR and SBA rules contain the details relevant to small businesses’ limitations on subcontracting. These regulations are, in general, pretty straightforward. Well, at least when it comes to total small business set asides for one specific type of work. Further, there are a ton of resources available to help small business federal contractors understand these limits. Just googling “limitations on subcontracting” comes up with webinars, blogs, federal government sites, and even YouTube videos on the topic, but most only focus on the more general limitations. There aren’t nearly as many resources that take on the topic of partial set asides, but these limitations are important as well. In this post, I am going to walk you through how these limitations apply to partial set asides to show that contracts partially set aside for small businesses are not nearly as intimidating as they may seem.
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COFC Part II: Evaluation of Mentor-Protégé Joint Ventures
A couple of weeks ago, I explored the Court of Federal Claims case of SH Synergy, LLC v. United States. In that blog, linked below, I looked at the first question raised in the protest that centered on the question of whether a mentor with two approved mentor protégé joint ventures with two different protégés under the SBA’s Mentor-Protégé Program is restricted from placing competing offers for a solicitation, in this case GSA’s Polaris solicitation. The answer to that was yes, they are restricted pursuant to 13 C.F.R. § 125.9. Because this decision was chocked full of useful information, and as promised, I’m back to look at the second issue tackled in this mammoth COFC opinion: did the solicitation’s terms, which required mentor-protégé joint ventures, woman-owned small business joint ventures, and service-disabled veteran owned small business joint ventures to be evaluated in the same manner as offerors, generally, violate procurement regulations? As you will see, the answer to that question is also yes, and it appears that this decision has already had an impact on other procurements.
Continue readingCOFC Confirms: Mentor-Protege JVs from the Same Mentor Can’t Bid Against Each Other
Those who work within the federal government contracting world are likely to have noticed that, lately, many large indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracting vehicles are soliciting offers. However, with large contracting vehicles, which are often worth billions of dollars and promise many awards, there are often many protests. And Polaris, Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Next Generation 2 (T4NG2), and Chief Information Officer – Solutions and Partners 4 (CIO-SP4), to name just a few of such solicitations, are no exception. Although many bid protests are filed with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Court of Federal Claims (COFC) also has jurisdiction over such matters, and COFC decisions are usually more indepth and the review of information from the agency more robust than at GAO.. This post will discuss the first of three main issues SH Synergy, LLC v. United States, and, because there is so much useful information packed into the decision’s 75 pages, we’ll plan a separate post for other issues.
Continue readingGAO Upholds Low Agency Bar to Waive OCI
The FAR requires offerors, in most situations, to disclose any actual or potential organizational conflicts of interest (OCI) that exist when submitting an offer or proposal in response to a solicitation. While it is rare that an offeror will be excluded from competition solely due to the existence or potential of an OCI, offerors who do not disclose as required will most likely be excluded, making this a situation where you generally want to disclose the existence of an OCI up front, not explain after the agency’s discovery through other means. Offerors may choose to avoid, mitigate, or neutralize an OCI by putting up a organizational barrier between the individual creating the OCI and the perceived or actual conflict. However, in some situations, avoiding, mitigating, or neutralizing the OCI may not be in the agency’s best interest. In that case, and as happened in Accenture Federal Services, LLC, agencies are given the option to waive the requirements of FAR subpart 9.5, thereby making award regardless of the existence or potential of an OCI.
Continue readingForeign Ties: SBA Publishes Notice of SBIR and STTR Program Policy Directives Update
The Small Business Administration recently published a notice of an amendment to the Policy Directives for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program on April 3, 2023. The intent of the amendment is to incorporate a template that federal agencies may use to request information from SBIR and STTR applicants that the applicants are statutorily required to disclose. The revisions will be effective May 3, 2023, unless the SBA receives significant adverse comments prior to the effective date. Not sure what the SBIR and STTR Programs are? I’ve provided a very brief overview below. Curious about the required disclosures? Read on to find out!
Continue readingThird Time’s the Charm: Protest Sustained by COFC Due to Failure to Conduct Discussions and Flawed Price Reasonableness Evaluation
Proving that an agency acted improperly in its source selection process can be a difficult task for any protester. In theory, for a best value tradeoff decision, the agency’s decision and the process to come to that decision seems easy: the agency does a tradeoff between cost and non-cost factors, and that which is most advantageous to the government is awarded. How hard could it be? And the decisions handed down by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Court of Federal Claims (COFC) seem to confirm that it isn’t that hard, seeing as many cases challenging a best value decision are denied. This is, in large part, due to the discretion agencies are afforded in their source selection decisions. Whether an agency conducts discussions during the source selection process is one of many procurement factors that is left up to the agency’s discretion. But, every so often, a decision comes along to prove that there are limits to an agency’s discretion, and in this case, the agency’s discretion overstepped its bounds with its price reasonableness decision and the unjustified decision to not perform discussions.
Continue readingGAO Sustain: Agency Failed to Document Prior Experience Evaluation
Source selection decisions are often a point of contention for federal government contractors, and rightfully so. Contractors spend large amounts of time and resources putting together a bid in a competition that likely doesn’t have room to make an award to each bidder. This usually results in one or more awardees, as well as one or more disappointed bidders. Naturally, those disappointed bidders often question whether the agency’s source selection decision, and its method for getting there, was appropriate. Unfortunately, the only way of truly discerning whether that decision was correct is to spend more time and resources protesting the decision. With a 51% effectiveness rate in 2022 (counting sustains and corrective actions), according to GAO’s annual bid protest report, it can be difficult to determine whether to even go forward with a protest when things don’t seem to add up. But, as a recent protest demonstrates, agencies make mistakes, and in this case, the fatal flaw was failure to adequately document its decision.
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