The end of the year brings different traditions for different folks. Around these parts, Lawrence is celebrating its old fashioned Christmas Parade downtown. Old fashioned in this case means all horses and no motorized vehicles. It’s a fun event.

But for government contractors (and their lawyers), the end of the year is a great time to reflect on changes to the federal contracting legal landscape. In that vein, Public Contract’s (AKA Pub K) free Annual Review 2019 will take place via webcast on December 12 from 9 am to 4:30 pm. For those looking for some detailed discussion of government contracting issues over the past year from some seasoned presenters, this is the place.

Over the past couple weeks there has also been a lot of interesting updates in federal contracts, including a GAO report highlighting how lack of contractor ownership transparency can mask national security threats as well as other contractor scams, companies vying for the government e-commerce portals, and small contractors are struggling to meet cybersecurity standards. The GAO report will make for good reading as it has a lot of examples of ownership concerns for those looking to avoid fraud issues in government contracting.

SmallGovCon readers, have a great Thanksgiving! We won’t be posting our weekly roundup next week due to the holiday, but we’ll catch up on any missed news the following week.

In the mean time, enjoy this week’s roundup of federal contracting news. Also be sure to enjoy the family, friends, and food at your Thanksgiving table. My personal favorite–stuffing! Below are some interesting updates about GSA’s investigation into the rocky transition to beta.sam.gov, a guilty plea in a “Rent-A-Vet” Scheme, and Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division establishing New Business Opportunities.