The Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship recently held a hearing focusing on the role small businesses will play in NASA’s renewed focus on going back to the Moon and then on to Mars.
We have recently touched on the growing impact space exploration is having on small businesses, and vice versa, but this dedicated hearing prompts a closer look at the opportunities small businesses will have for working on space exploration.
Continue readingGAO recently held in ATA Aerospace, LLC, B-417427 (July 2, 2019) that agencies are required to explain how offerors’ proposed labor hours and prices are, or are not, in line with historical data from predecessor contracts when conducting cost realism evaluations.
Continue readingMany federal construction contractors know that contract changes can be frustrating business. Changes can be unilateral or bilateral. They can stress a contractor’s finances. They can delay the overall project. And they can result in animosity between the agency and a contractor.
Fortunately, GAO has shined some light on the problems in the contract change process. Indeed, in a recent report, GAO concluded that agencies, particularly the Army Corps of Engineers and GSA, need to develop better systems to collect data about changes in construction contracts.
Continue readingMost federal contracts are structured with a base period with a number of option periods that can be exercised at the agency’s discretion. But what happens if an option year goes unexercised? Recently, a disappointed contractor attempted to challenge the agency’s decision not to exercise an option before GAO.
Unfortunately, GAO was not receptive.
Continue readingThe proposed National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2020 introduces new pathways for certain Department of Defense software acquisitions. These proposed software acquisition pathways would be separate from the traditional Department of Defense acquisitions process, and contain sweeping streamlining functions, especially within their supervisory structure.
If passed, this new pathway could have a significant effect on how defense agencies acquire software.
Continue readingIn government contracting—as in life—it’s important to be honest. And in our experience, most government contractors are honest. Where a contractor is dishonest or untruthful, it can face significant sanctions.
So it was in a recent SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals decision, in which the OHA considered the cancellation of an entity’s SDVOSB status. In CVE Appeal of Afily8 Government Solutions, LLC, SBA No. CVE-125-A (2019), the OHA affirmed the cancellation of Afily8’s SDVOSB verification based on concerns that Afily8 did not provide truthful information to the VA’s Center for Verification and Evaluation.
Continue readingMany government contractors are familiar with FOIA requests, or requests made by individuals under the Freedom of Information Act for release of information in the federal government’s possession.
In the recent case Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, the U.S. Supreme Court held that commercial or financial information is “confidential” and cannot be disclosed under FOIA where it is treated as private by its owner and provided to the government under an assurance of privacy.
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