A small business and its owner have agreed to pay $250,000 to resolve HUBZone fraud allegations, including a claim that the company’s HUBZone office was a “virtual” location where no employees actually worked.
According to a Department of Justice press release, Air Ideal, Inc. and its majority owner have also agreed to pay the government five percent of the company’s gross revenues over the next five years.
The GAO has sustained a second protest based upon FedBid’s suspension of a contractor from its system.
For the second time in less than one week, the GAO held that the contractor’s suspension from FedBid–and resulting inability to bid on a contract–was improper because the matter was not referred to the SBA under the SBA’s Certificate of Competency procedures.
I am back in Lawrence after a great trip to the Des Moines area, where I participated in the Iowa Vendor Conference. My conference presentation focused on prime/subcontractor teaming on federal set-aside contracts.
Many thanks to Pam Russenberger, Jodi Essex, Beth White, Julie Fagle, and the rest of the Iowa Procurement Technical Assistance Program Team for sponsoring this great event. And a big “thank you” to all of the contractors and industry professionals who attended my presentation, asked great questions, and (mostly) didn’t boo when I happened to bring up the glorious results of the previous night’s basketball game.
If you are in Iowa but weren’t able to make it to the Iowa Vendor Conference, I will be back in the area for the Midwest Small Business Government Contracting Symposium in June. I hope to see you there!
The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has jurisdiction to hear challenges to the SBA’s SDVOSB determinations.
In a recent case, the Court held that it had the power to review a decision issued by the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals, in which OHA deemed a company ineligible to receive a SDVOSB set-side contract.
A large business was tossed out of a government competition because the company’s small business subcontracting goal was substantially below the agency’s stated goal.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that the agency acted reasonably when it rated the large business as “unacceptable” for failing to propose a sufficiently high small business subcontracting goal.
An incumbent contractor performing VA CVE SDVOSB verification functions was ineligible to be be re-awarded an order for those services because of an unmitigated organizational conflict of interest.
In a recent decision, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims upheld the VA’s decision to cancel the award to the incumbent contractor and exclude that contractor from the follow-on order.
The suspension of a small business’s FedBid account was improper because the matter was not referred to the SBA under the SBA’s certificate of competency procedures.
In an important decision for small businesses participating in reverse auctions, the GAO recently held that FedBid could not properly suspend a small business’s user account for a supposed lack of “business integrity,” thereby causing the small business to be ineligible to bid on a federal solicitation, without a referral to the SBA.