Author Archives: Steven Koprince

SBA Doesn’t Fix Incorrect NAICS Code Regulation; Protester Pays The Price

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A contractor’s NAICS code appeal was dismissed as untimely, even though it was filed within the time frame expressly established in an SBA regulation.

In a recent decision, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals confirmed its earlier ruling that a NAICS code appeal must be filed within ten calendar days, despite an SBA regulation establishing a filing deadline of ten business days.

SBA OHA’s decision isn’t surprising in light of its prior ruling.  However, in my mind, the decision raises a question of fundamental fairness: should protesters continue to be penalized for the SBA’s failure to fix its conflicting timeliness regulations?

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SDVOSB Fraud: Business Owner Gets Prison Time

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A federal judge has sentenced a business owner to one year and one day in prison stemming from a guilty plea to charges of SDVOSB fraud.

The sentence, which also imposes a $399,000 fine, brings an end to a SDVOSB fraud story I first wrote about last year.

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Strange, But True: Contractor Protests Its Own Award

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Here’s one you don’t see every day: a contractor, complaining that the government was unfairly holding it to outdated pricing, attempted to protest its own award.

No dice, according to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which dismissed the protest on jurisdictional grounds.

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SBA OHA Decision Highlights Joint Venture “Individual Size Treatment” Rule

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The SBA misevaluated a joint venture by basing its ineligibility decision on the joint venture’s revenues, rather than determining whether each joint venturer, individually, qualified as a small business, according to a recent decision of the SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals.

SBA OHA’s decision highlights what I like to call the “individual size treatment rule,” a special regulation requiring the SBA to deem a joint venture “small” under certain circumstances, even when the combined sizes of the joint venture’s members exceed the applicable size standard.

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FAA ODRA Applies SBA Ostensible Subcontractor Rule

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The Federal Aviation Administration is exempt from the Small Business Act and the SBA’s size regulations, but this does not mean that the SBA’s ostensible subcontractor affiliation rule does not apply in FAA procurements.

In a recent decision, the FAA’s Office of Dispute Resolution for Acquisition applied the ostensible subcontractor rule–and SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals decisions interpreting that rule–in arriving at the conclusion that a contract awardee was an eligible small business.

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DOT DBE Fraud: Government Announces Two Large Settlements

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If you are planning to defraud the U.S. Government (and I certainly hope that you are not), your best bet is to avoid the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Disadvantaged Business Entity program.

Yesterday, the Department of Justice announced that a DOT DBE subcontractor had agreed to settle “pass-through” fraud claims for $936,000.  The DOJ’s announcement comes on the heels of a June 6 press release touting a settlement of nearly $3 million, also stemming from alleged DOT DBE fraud.

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Contractor Doesn’t Use Excel, Gets Booted From Competition

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A prospective contractor was kicked out of a competition for submitting its pricing in PDF format, instead of in Microsoft Excel files, as called for in the solicitation.

In a bid protest filed by the excluded offeror, the GAO held that the procuring agency properly deemed the offeror unacceptable for failing to use Excel.

Somewhere, Bill Gates is smiling.

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